The Mercy Seat
by No.13Baby
Summary: Nothing prevents Derek Morgan from protecting someone he loves. Not even, as it turns out, the end of the world. M/P romance, JJ/Em/PG friendship.
1. Chapter 1

__Disclaimer: These characters are not mine.

A/N: I set myself the challenge to write a love story, and this plot wouldn't leave me alone. The fact that the first backdrop that popped into my head for Morgan and Prentiss to finally get together was the Apocalypse may make me a bad shipper. I'm willing to live with that. This is for all those who begged me for a pairing in my last fic, and though this is quite a departure, I'm hoping some will still enjoy it. I'll never understand why the M/P fandom isn't bigger than it is... these two seem to work on so many levels and are an absolute blast to write.

* * *

_Into the mercy seat I climb__  
__My head is shaved, my head is wired__  
__And like a moth that tries __to enter the bright eye__  
__I go shuffling out of life __just to hide in death a while..._

_And the mercy seat is burning__, a__nd I think my head is glowing__  
__And in a way I'm hoping__ t__o be done with all this weighing up of truth.__  
__An eye for an eye __and a tooth for a tooth__, a__nd I've got nothing left to lose__  
__And I'm not afraid to die_

_-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds_

"Have you seen him yet?"

Emily Prentiss started at the flash of yellow and fuchsia that seemed to appear out of nowhere at her side. She looked down at her friend's grip on her arm and fought back a smile before greeting her. "Morning to you too, Pen."

Garcia barely took a breath, only leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks and continued, rapid-fire. "Yes, yes. Good morning, you're beautiful, and I love you dearly, but have you _seen_ him?"

"Seen whom? I was just going to get some coffee." She gave the blonde a pointed look saying (as if it were necessary,) _I haven't had any yet_.

Penelope, as always, either missed the implication or chose to ignore it. "Um, the new guy the Components brought in yesterday for questioning? Okay, I know he's an Outlaw and everything, but Emily, he is a _god_." At Emily's look, she hastened to draw an imaginary X over her heart. "No exaggeration! Em, I swear to you, JJ and I caught a glimpse yesterday when Rossi went in to start the interrogation. This man is like a chocolate Adonis."

"Chocolate Adonis?" Emily raised an eyebrow.

"Don't interrupt me while I'm fantasizing. Yes, like a glistening chocolate Adonis. I just want to-" She bared her teeth in a mock growl and clawed the fingers of one hand. "I just want to go over there and claw my way down his perfectly-sculpted chest. And then he'd wake up and say something _sexy. _Like," she shook her head, seemingly at a loss for a moment. "Like—come here, babygirl. And I would. I totally would, and I'd spend the rest of my life as his babygirl sex kitten and—"

"Babygirl…" Distracted, Emily didn't notice her friend's sudden change in demeanor until a tug at her arm told her the blonde had suddenly stopped in her tracks and was now staring at her, mortified.

"Oh, Em, I—I didn't mean… Criminy, I wasn't thinking."

"What?" Emily was confused for a moment, then let her expression soften as she caught onto her friend's train of thought. "Oh, no. Pen, it's not that. It's just a funny nickname, is all. It jumped out at me."

Penelope looked doubtful, brown eyes wide and seemingly searching her face for some tell that there was more she wasn't sharing, and Emily had to smile. She had always loved Garcia's eyes, wide and pretty and honest and surprisingly perceptive. She was dazzling today, as always, in pink and gold, and was now studying her with her familiar brand of sweet concern.

"Are you really okay, Em? I mean, not just right now, but in general?"

It was Emily's turn to link an arm through hers, tugging her playfully towards the break room. "I'm fine, Penelope," she assured her. "I'm just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" Emily could tell her friend was not convinced. "I know," Penelope added quickly. "I know you've been through a lot lately. But you always get all sad and doubty when you think too much, and you know how much I hate it when you're sad."

"Penelope," Emily squeezed her friend's arm affectionately. "I'm not sad. And doubty isn't a word."

"It is too a word. It's that thing you do when you're thinking too much and you go all hazy on me even though I try to tell you that your friends are here, and they want to help you if you'll let them, and then you say you know and you believe me, but I know you don't really because it still seems like you're a zillion miles away and I feel like I can't reach you."

They had stopped walking, Penelope drawing back to study her again. Emily couldn't help the surge of guilt she felt looking into her friend's misting eyes. "I'm not a zillion miles away," she reassured her softly. "I'm right here with you guys. I promise."

Garcia gave her a small smile but still seemed to have her doubts. "It's just, JJ and I worry about you, Emily. And we want to help you, but you have to let us in. Listen," Garcia took a step closer. "Things happen. Terrible things. And of course you never forget, but at some point you've got to let go and let us help you move forward. The Bureau needs you, Em. _We _need you."

Emily smiled. "You're right." She took a breath and let it out slowly. "And maybe I have been a bit distant lately. But believe me, Pen, it has nothing to do with you and Jayje. I love you guys. And I'm—I'm happy. I really am." Emily reached again for her friend's arm. "Come out with me tonight. Drinks on me—I owe you guys. Plus there's this cute new agent in Enforcement who I'm pretty sure was _made_ for JJ. I want to get her plastered before bringing it up for the first time."

Mollified, Penelope returned her conniving smirk delightedly. "_There_ you are! Lady, welcome back, and never, ever leave me again." Emily laughed as Garcia pulled her even closer and continued in an excited mock whisper. "And I think I know exactly the guy you're talking about. Brown hair, cute baby blues, some sort of accent…?"

* * *

"So have you seen him yet?" JJ doled out the three heavy, frosted mugs she had brought from the bar and slid into the bench beside Garcia.

Emily rolled her eyes. "Seriously, you too, JJ? This must be one hell of an Outlaw they've got in there."

"Honestly? Whatever Pen told you about him is true. He's really, _really_… impressive."

"See, Em? Even JJ vouches for me. I would have described him a bit more colorfully—"

"And you certainly did," Emily reminded her.

Penelope nodded. "But if JJ confirms it then you've _got_ to believe me."

"I never said I didn't believe you… So what is it about this guy that's got you two all hot and bothered? Aside from his 'perfectly sculpted chest and 8-pack of the gods,' of course" Emily smirked and took a swig of her beer.

Penelope opened her mouth on a breath, but stopped as she obviously sorted through the myriad responses that had come to her mind. JJ just shrugged. "I don't know, I mean—it's the whole mystery of it, I guess. He turned himself in, you know."

At this, Emily's brow rose in surprise. "Turned himself in? How? Why would he do that?"

"It happens, you know that. Just walked up to some Components in the middle of last night. Apparently it all went down without so much as a peep from either side."

Emily frowned. "There's got to be something he wants. Who is this guy?"

"Ah," Penelope said. "I believe figuring that out would be your department, my love. _My _department, for the foreseeable future, is going to be trying to get a grope of his biceps." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Emily laughed, but something she couldn't pinpoint exactly still bothered her. JJ noticed. "What is it, Em? Sure, there might be something more going on, but the Bureau's equipped to handle bigger threats than a single Outlaw who's already in custody. And Rossi's been interrogating him all day without a hitch."

Emily shook her head as if to clear it of doubt. "Yeah, I know. Just me being paranoid, I guess." She shot her friends a self-deprecating smile and quickly changed the subject. "So, Jayje…"

JJ immediately went on the defensive. "Oh, no. No you don't, you guys. I'm good, I like my life, just leave it alone."

"JJ please, just hear us out," Penelope practically whined. "He works in Enforcement. _So _cute. Sexy but quiet, you know? Like his Mama raised him right."

"And the accent," Emily added, as if no further explanation was necessary. "Come on, just picture it: candlelight, a little dancing, _amazing_ blue eyes that just scream 'undress me'…"

"I dunno, Em. Seems more like your type—are you sure _you_ don't want to date him?"

"What do you mean _my _type? He's perfect for you."

"I agree, Jayje," Penelope nodded soberly. "Will is neither a recluse nor a sociopath, so Em's clearly not interested."

"Hey!" Emily protested. "But no, I don't want to date him. I just happen to think that Will is a kind, respectful—"

"—Hot British dude with a sexy accent, badge, and gun. See? Just your type." JJ smirked.

In her surprise, Emily must have taken a moment too long to reply because suddenly JJ's face and voice had grown serious again. "Hey, you okay?"

"Hm? Yeah. No, yeah, I'm good. Just, he's not British. He's—I don't know, Cajun or something, I think."

JJ gave her a funny look. "Okay, I never said he was British, but good to know."

"You said 'hot British dude'… It doesn't matter. So can I give him your number or what?"

JJ rolled her eyes. "Get your ears checked, Em. I said 'hot Bureau agent.'" She sighed. "Yeah, fine. Give him my number, but I am warning you two, this guy better be every bit as amazing as you're describing or you're both banned for eternity from my love life… Em? Hey, Emily!"

JJ's voice, which had faded into a background monotone, suddenly snapped back into clarity, and Emily started. She was so sure she had heard… but why on Earth did it matter anyway? "Yes. Yeah…" she took a moment to get her bearings, then grinned across the table. "That's awesome, Jayje. Trust me, you two are going to get along great. I just have this feeling."

But her two friends had stopped smiling. "Emily, are you really okay?" JJ asked kindly. "You seem… I don't know, maybe you're about to get sick or something?"

Emily waved her off. "I'm fine. Just déjà vu—sorry for zoning out on you."

Garcia shook her head and spoke almost hesitantly. "You've been out of it all day, Sweetie. You know you can talk to us. About anything."

Emily shrugged. "If there was something that needed talking about, I would talk." Neither woman responded. She sighed. "It's nothing. It's stupid."

"It's not stupid if it's bothering you, Sugar." Penelope reached across the table to cover her hand with her own. "Talk to us."

Emily hesitated, then took a long swig of beer. "Do you guys ever get the feeling something's wrong, but can't pinpoint it exactly?"

"Wrong with what?"

"Things," Emily gestured vaguely. "People. Life." She snorted. "God, I sound like an angsty teenager."

"Emily, what you've been through this year—" Penelope offered softly.

Suddenly, Emily felt her temper flare. "Stop it, okay? Just stop. Despite what you may believe, not everything is about my dead baby." She blinked back the tears that suddenly threatened to spill at her own caustic words. "I told you I'm fine; this is _not_ about that."

Penelope looked as if she were about to crumble, and JJ made a sudden move forward as if to try to hold her. Emily felt all the vitriol drain from her as suddenly as it had risen. She rested her forehead in her hands and let out a shaky breath. "Or maybe it is. I'm sorry, guys. I just—I'm sorry."

JJ reached over the rub her arm, and Penelope gave her a watery smile. Emily laughed shakily and wiped at her eyes before any tears could fall. "Look at me, no wonder you guys think I'm losing it. Let's talk about something else, okay? I brought you guys out to have fun, not for a drama-fest."

"Sure," JJ said. "But you know it doesn't bother us, right?" Beside her, Penelope shook her head firmly in agreement. "We just love you and want you to be happy."

"I know," Emily answered, honestly. "I know, and I am. I love you guys too."

She wasn't lying, exactly. Emily Prentiss _was _happy. JJ and Penelope were like the sisters she never had, keeping her deepest secrets and demanding nothing less than the very best she had to give, even when she wasn't feeling up to giving it. Losing Grace, whose life had been over before she had ever drawn a breath, had been the most painful ordeal she had ever experienced, and the two women had practically carried her through it, piece by broken piece. There had been a man, of course, but that hardly mattered anymore. Emily couldn't even conjure up his face in her memory, and she had no interest in trying too hard to do so.

Perhaps that did explain why she had had the most persistent feeling lately that something was off. As if she had spent her entire life looking at the same painting in her hallway, only to find one day that someone had come along and changed all the colours on her. Emily let her hand drop absently to her abdomen, knowing that the void she still felt there would probably never go away. She simply couldn't shake the feeling, though, that that wasn't all there was to it. Though she had trouble articulating what it was that was nagging at her, she was becoming more and more certain of one inexplicable truth:

Something was missing.

* * *

Her job at the Bureau sounded simple enough: interpret and predict human behaviour. Emily didn't know why she was so good at it; she didn't remember ever particularly _trying _to become an expert, but she was, apparently, a bit of a rarity. Her team functioned like a well-oiled machine: Rossi extracted information, the Doctor ran the raw data and identified significant patterns, and she analysed and interpreted those patterns into meaning, wrote her report and recommendations, and passed it on to Hotchner. Garcia maintained the Bureau's integrated Network and everything that interfaced with it. JJ was, essentially, both their face and their voice.

Emily smiled down at the new dossier waiting for her on her desk, labeled simply: Subject 8991. The preliminaries from Garcia's Chocolate Adonis, she guessed. Perhaps she could get something juicy to share with her friend; Emily knew any piece of lurid gossip would thrill her. She slipped the data stick out from its folder and plugged it into her workstation. Her eyes scanned quickly over the first few data sets the Doctor had compiled.

It only took a few minutes. First, Emily realized, for no discernable reason, her palms were sweating. The further along she went, the worse it got. Her fingers were trembling now, and her heart raced, throbbing loudly in her ears and pounding against the inside of her skull. Emily realized belatedly that she had been holding her breath and gasped for air. Within minutes, it was as if everything was falling into place, yet everything remained jarring and unfamiliar and unbelievably strange.

With a violent shove of her chair backwards, she practically stumbled away from her workstation, leaning heavily against the outside edge of her desk and trying to catch her breath. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't do this," she whispered to herself. "You can't be losing it. Not now, not after everything." She took a few calming breaths and blew them out slowly past her lips until her heart rate had slowed somewhat and she could see straight. Then, she marched back to her chair and sat down.

No, she hadn't been imagining things. Suddenly, all the colours were precisely what they were supposed to be—but she had never seen this painting before in her life. Emily knew immediately that if she wanted answers, she only had one choice: she was going to have to meet Subject 8991.

She didn't know why she did it—she already had full access to interrogation rooms—but she copied Rossi's access code while he was on break, then waited, busying herself with inconsequential busywork and not really focusing on anything, until the rest of the team was gone for the night. Then she hurried over to Interrogation Room 1, punched in Rossi's code, and slipped inside.

She stood with her back against the door, hesitating for several minutes before advancing into the room. Penelope and JJ had been right—he was impressive. The Outlaw (_Subject_, Emily corrected herself. Once one is a Subject of the Bureau, they are to be rehabilitated or incarcerated as the Bureau sees fit, but they are no longer considered an Outlaw no matter what their past) lay face up and semi-reclined in a shallow bath cut into the floor. The chest and shoulders that emerged from the glistening whitish goop in which he was partially submerged were heavily muscled. His well-built arms rested on the floor to either side of him, his eyes were closed, and he may have looked as if he were simply relaxing were it not for the thick metal wires sprouting from several electrodes on his hairless scalp. The wires ended at the workstation in the back corner of the room from where Rossi would normally do his work. Out of habit, Emily moved to go sit at the workstation, but something made her stop, turn, and make her way slowly over to the unknown Subject. She dropped to her knees beside him and spent a long moment studying his face, waiting for some piece to come loose in her consciousness as it had earlier.

Nothing. _You're losing it. Walk away and pretend this never happened. _She knew, though, she didn't have any choice in the matter. Emily reached out to touch his cheek.

The walls receded into shadow, the floor darkened to a cold, grey stone. The shallow, illuminated pool of viscous liquid disappeared. Faint light from an unidentifiable source flickered into the gloom as if from behind rotating slats—a ceiling fan? Propeller blades? A voice (source, again, unseen,) lofty and disinterested, as if recorded and played back, was chanting, no, _counting_. Subject 8991 was awake, pacing. He was naked, and he did not see her.

All this in only seconds. Then, all gone. Everything faded to a hazy white. Emily shielded her eyes. Subject 8991 was standing in front of her, the only discernable sight from a background of nothingness. He wore some sort of loose, white dhoti from waist down; his top was bare. His smooth, bronze skin nearly shone as if burnished. He was looking at her, and he was smiling, a wide, unfettered, even cocky grin that made him even more beautiful than he had been to begin with. His eyes twinkled with it.

"Emily Prentiss," he greeted her. "I thought you'd never make it."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you so much to my reviewers... and for some very humbling comparisons! I have of course been inspired heavily by pretty much every sci-fi movie ever for the themes in this story. But since pretty much every sci-fi movie ever made has been inspired heavily by every _other_ sci-fi movie ever made, I plan to rest my defence on industry standard ;)

* * *

Emily recoiled but, with nothing beneath her feet, found it impossible to step away from the man. Only a part of her had really wanted to anyway. "Who are you?" she demanded instead. "Where the hell am I?"

He kept smiling at her, but something flickered behind his eyes. If Emily hadn't known better, she might almost have thought it was… sadness? Hurt, maybe? He seemed to deliberate for a while over how to answer her.

"I'm Derek," he said, finally. "And… you're with me." He cocked his head at her as if it were obvious and regarded her placidly.

Emily narrowed her eyes. "Okay, Derek. Tell me how you know my name. And, seriously, where are we? Besides, you know, _with _each other," she amended sarcastically.

"Isn't that enough?" This time, Derek's answer was immediate, and he stepped easily towards her, gazing at her hungrily, almost desperately. Emily felt as if she should probably be alarmed. She wasn't.

After a very long moment, Derek finally broke eye contact, glanced around them, and sighed. "You don't have any context for me," he stated, a note sadness creeping into his voice. He turned back to Emily and moved to reach for her, then stopped himself. "May I?" He asked, one hand still held out to her in mid-air. "I want to show you something."

Bewildered, Emily didn't even think to question him and only distantly wondered what the hell he was talking about and how this was going to help him answer her questions. She silently lifted her own hand and held it in front of her, waiting for him to take it. As he did, their surroundings changed yet again. This time, she was neither a spectator, as she had been in the dark grey cell, nor a participant as in the white realm with Derek. Here, Emily was both at the same time, as if she had suddenly fallen asleep and begun to dream.

* * *

The end of the world came, for Morgan and Prentiss, quietly and in the form of static on the radio following several news reports of unusual meteorological events across the country and the globe.

Emily frowned and flipped through the stations only to encounter persistent white noise on every one. Huffing, she hit the off button and leaned back in her seat. "Crazy," she muttered. "Global warming. We're all screwed."

From the driver's seat, Morgan grinned at her. "Well, if it isn't my little ray of sunshine. I just love taking long car trips with you, Prentiss."

The two of them had been sent on a side project to Ramona, California, to give a their recommendation regarding a few disappearances of tourists around the area. There had been very little evidence so far of foul play, but five people _were _gone, and Hotch had spared them as a courtesy while the rest of the team stayed behind to work another string of disappearances back home. Morgan and Prentiss had flown to San Diego, picked up a Suburban at the field office there, and headed for Ramona. Emily rolled her eyes at his jab, then glanced warily in the side view mirror to where dark clouds were gathering and lightning flashed intermittently behind them over the city. "Well," she said, relieved. "Car trip means at least we missed _that. _Hopefully it'll dissipate before we need to head back there."

"Weird," Derek murmured, following her gaze in the rear-view mirror. "Pacific hurricane season doesn't start for at least another month."

Emily turned to him, surprised. "Okay Dr. Reid," she teased. "You wanna tell me the average yearly rainfall too?"

"Ah ha ha," he returned sarcastically. "I happen to have partied in Southern California a few times in my day, and I like to know when I'm risking my ass to the elements every time I want to lie out on the beach and admire—swimwear." He raised a flirtatious eyebrow at her.

Emily snorted. "Of course."

"And just for that, you're not invited to my next beach party vacation."

"Right, as if I'd want to give you the satisfaction of a free _swimwear_ show."

"Come on, Prentiss, you, me, drinks that get served to us with tiny umbrellas in them, little red bikini…"

"Whoa, whoa. Who said anything about a bikini? I happen to be a very outspoken champion of the Flowery Mom Swimsuit."

Derek's eyes tore from the road ahead of him. "Now that's just criminal." He eyed her up and down, shaking his head.

"I'm serious," she continued, laughing. "At least two sizes too big—complete with the nicely sagging butt area."

Derek clicked his tongue, looking away in mock frustration. "Prentiss, why do you have to go and ruin all my fantasies? I swear you do it on purpose."

"Well if you would keep your gross inappropriate thoughts to yourself for once…" Emily punched him teasingly in the arm and smirked at him, then found her attention being diverted to a wrecked and abandoned vehicle halfway into the bush lining the road. "Weird place for a single-vehicle crash," she mused. "Hope no one was hurt too badly."

Ten minutes later, they had arrived in Ramona and were beginning to lose track of how many wrecks they had come across. Pulling up in front of the police station, Morgan and Prentiss stepped out of the Suburban to utter stillness. "Must've been one hell of a storm," Morgan said, disconcerted.

Prentiss turned in a slow circle, taking everything in. The damage to the town didn't look too extensive—some downed power lines and trees, some relatively minor building damage—but not a soul was outside, and cars littered the quiet streets, some with varying degrees of damage, others simply abandoned. She shivered before following Morgan into the police station.

It wasn't terribly surprising that no one greeted them at the front desk, but it certainly didn't help the eeriness of the situation either. Morgan pressed the bell several times and leaned over the desk towards the back of the station. "Hello?" He called out. "Anyone here?"

When no answer came, he and Prentiss exchanged a bemused look and skirted the desk to enter the station proper. After knocking on, entering, and finding empty every office and conference room in the building, the two agents were baffled. "City Hall maybe?" Prentiss offered. "That's the only other likely place people would go in a disaster. Or maybe they have an underground storm shelter." She pulled out her phone to locate the information, but pocketed it again quickly with a sigh. "Of course. No service."

After Morgan, too, determined that his would be of no use, he seemed to come to a decision. "City Hall can't be too far from the station. Let's follow Main Street into town; we're bound to come across it."

He was right. 20 minutes later, the red brick face of the Ramona Town Hall greeted them from their left. Prentiss was surprised to find her heart pounding almost uncomfortably as she rested her hand on the front door handle and pulled. She couldn't help the rush of disappointment that followed as they were met once again with an empty room, and one look at her partner told her he was experiencing the same mounting anxiety. This time, their search was more cursory before they confirmed the obvious: no one was there.

Back outside, the two agents quickly tamed their alarm and ran through their options. "If they're all in some sort of shelter," Morgan reasoned, "we could waste half the day looking for it."

Prentiss nodded. "We're here, anyway," she said, chewing her bottom lip. "We could just go ahead to the first resort and hopefully start interviewing. Maybe the storm didn't hit so badly up there."

The resort was about 20 minutes outside of town, nestled on the side of a gently-sloping mountain, with vaulted ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the teal water of a reservoir lake.

"Nice place," Prentiss murmured, pausing outside the front door to take in her surroundings. "I might be willing to take that vacation after all if this is what it would look like."

Morgan only smiled at her and, as if sensing her hesitance to enter, seemed to steel himself before opening the front door and walking decisively into the main foyer, Prentiss close behind him.

"Hello," she called. "FBI." Nothing. This time, neither agent could hide their growing concern. A rapid search of the place revealed nearly nothing amiss. A few rooms still had suitcases and personal items in them; there were a few unwashed dishes in the large kitchen. "Okay," Prentiss breathed, shaking her head in bewilderment. "This is really starting to creep me out."

Morgan said nothing, but Prentiss noticed he kept checking his phone nervously, probably hoping to find a small window of signal. "What are you thinking?" He finally asked her, obviously at a loss.

Prentiss shrugged. "We go back to San Diego, I guess. It's the same county; the Ramona station would have notified Headquarters there before evacuating the city. Worst case, we extend our trip a few days and come back here when everything's up and running again."

Morgan nodded in agreement but then seemed to hesitate. "I wouldn't mind poking around a bit more since we're here. The victims' rooms are already closed off—we could just get an idea, maybe determine if we even need to bother coming back."

"Well, far be it from me to pass up the opportunity to poke around a crime scene in a creepily abandoned mountain lodge… lead the way."

The sealed off rooms revealed nothing more than the rest of the resort had. Clothes were neatly put away in drawers or draped over furniture as if to dry. Half-empty boxes of granola bars and trail mix sat atop dressers. Beds were made. After 15 minutes or so, Prentiss wandered over to gaze at the view out the window. "Kinda seems like these people left for a day hike and just got lost."

Morgan bobbed his head noncommittally. "Or they left for a day hike and ran into the wrong person."

"Of course. But how extensive has the search party been? The state and national parks around here cover miles of ground. I just think it's going to be hard to prove foul play without more—"

When she didn't continue, Morgan looked up curiously to find his partner leaning towards the room's huge window, studying something outside with rapt attention. Then, she started to back away.

"Morgan," she whispered, obviously alarmed. Morgan went immediately into high alert.

"What?" He asked her urgently, moving to join her closer to the window. "What is it?" He had barely taken two steps, however, when Prentiss whirled around, herding him back and practically shoving him down against the far side of a dresser before crouching down next to him, and throwing an arm out across his chest to keep him huddled against the wall. Morgan had barely opened his mouth to demand an explanation when a nearly blinding spotlight swept the room, moving slowly and thoroughly over each corner. With the dresser blocking his view of the window, it was impossible to see its source, but he could hear the crunch of something moving across the forested earth outside and the occasional tap on the window or bump on the side of the building. "What the hell is it, Prentiss? Police?" he asked, frustrated, attempting to lean forward in order to peek around the dresser and out the window, only to find the pressure of his partner's arm across his chest increase to hold him in place. Prentiss shook her head at him in silent warning.

The tense minutes that followed felt like hours. Morgan could feel his body tingling with unspent energy as adrenaline coursed through him. Beside him, Prentiss was barely breathing, her eyes unfocused but darting subtly as if she were attempting to silently reason something out. He could hardly stand the limbo he found himself in; Derek Morgan was not made to huddle silently against a wall while an unknown, unseen threat posed possible danger to himself and those he cared about. It took a conscious effort to remain still and hidden; the one and only thing preventing him from bursting out from behind the dresser and facing whatever was outside head on was the deeply-entrenched and unwavering certainty that his partner knew what she was doing.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the spotlight disappeared from the room, and the sounds of movement from outside became slowly more muffled by distance.

Prentiss let out a breath, but her body remained tensed and defensive as she slowly scooted forward to peek around the dresser and out the window. As Morgan followed suit, she motioned for him to remain silent and slowly stood up to move again towards the window, skirting the wall closely to remain as hidden as possible.

Initially, the scenery outside appeared unremarkable. It wasn't until they got close enough to the window to widen their field of vision that Morgan's breath caught in his throat.

There were two of them, as far as he could tell. Probably nine feet tall, the bizarrely shimmering orbs rested directly atop two gangly limbs, almost mechanical-looking were it not for the network of moist, black, pulsing vasculature that coiled and branched over them. The orbs themselves gave the impression of neckless, bodiless heads, and radiated a light that could not have come from any electrical or digital source that Morgan had ever seen. The blinding spotlights from what appeared to be the front of the orbs, however, seemed far too bright to be bioluminescent. The things seemed to be turning their spotlights on and off at will, as one repeated its search of their room on the next window back from theirs, while the other investigated their SUV towards the front of the building.

"What the hell are those things?" Morgan breathed, transfixed.

Prentiss shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered. "But I don't think I want to get caught in one of those spotlights."

Suddenly, as if on cue, the thing near the SUV whipped around, seemingly startled by a noise behind it. Morgan and Prentiss watched in horror as the spotlight fell upon a squirrel darting across an overhanging branch. Not even a second later, the squirrel was gone.

Not just dead. _Gone. _

Both agents watched in shock as the thing turned back to the vehicle for another cursory once-over, then headed over to meet its companion near the rear of the building. As it drew near to pass by their window, Morgan silently tugged Prentiss back slowly until they were hidden once again by the dresser. Morgan met his partner's eyes. "They're searching the building. For what?"

Prentiss swallowed before answering. "Survivors." Morgan only nodded, confirming that he had reluctantly come to the same disturbing conclusion. "You think they can get in?" She continued.

"I don't know." He rubbed a hand over his head nervously and jumped slightly when the noise outside suddenly rose, and one of the things (a third?) again passed the window to their room. Morgan nodded silently to the bathroom door a little farther back, and they both crept inside and eased the door closed behind them. Prentiss looked at him, wide-eyed in disbelief.

"God, what the hell is going on?"

Morgan offered the only explanation that made any sort of sense to him. "Defense experiment gone wrong?" Prentiss nodded, chewing on her lip and looking doubtful. Then, Morgan spoke more decisively. "We'll hole up here 'til the area's clear. Then we'll make tracks back to San Diego and find out if they know anything there."

"No." Morgan was startled by the finality in her voice and even more so by the fact that his partner seemed genuinely freaked. She shook her head and met his eyes unwaveringly. "I don't think so, Derek. Not San Diego. I've seen this movie too many times not to know that the city's a bad idea."

Morgan gaped at her, a little annoyed. "This isn't a movie, Prentiss. What do you propose we do, stay here and wait for those things to vaporize us?"

She held up her hand to calm him. "I know, just hear me out, okay? What if—" she paused, choosing her words carefully. "What if this is bigger than just Ramona—bigger than some ultra-classified DOD mishap? San Diego's huge, we don't know what to expect, and we'd be getting in over our heads. I don't want to end up running headlong into a nest of those things."

Morgan seemed to think about it, then sighed, conceding her point. "Where, then?" He asked her.

Emily weighed her options for a minute. "How about north," She suggested. "Reno, maybe? It's a fraction of the size of San Diego but big enough that they'll probably have access to intel. Plus if the highway seems risky we can make our way through Yosemite."

Morgan blew a breath out through pursed lips. "Jesus, Em," he breathed. "This is insane." She said nothing, only continued to regard him expectantly. "Yeah," he said, finally. "Yeah, okay. Reno it is."

Prentiss nodded wordlessly, then she and Morgan both settled back to listen for the sounds of the things outside to stop. They waited in silence for what seemed like hours, both haunted by the same certainty to which neither was willing, just yet, to give voice.

Whatever it was that had caused the entire population of Ramona to seemingly vanish into thin air, it was no thunderstorm.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Just want to point out that images and lines from the Grey Cell portion of this have been lifted from Charles Deaux's short film _Zoetrope_. The same will be true in corresponding parts of future chapters. Thank you ever so much for reading and for your extremely thoughtful feedback!

* * *

Emily awoke with a start on the grey tiled floor of an interrogation room, one arm stretched out, nearly touching a man whom she had never met in her life but whose skin seemed to beckon her like a lover's. Disoriented, she rolled away from him and made it clumsily to her feet, stumbling to the door and bursting out of the room and into an empty, darkened bullpen.

_Shit. _Emily cursed as she approached to her workstation and noted the time. Almost midnight. She would probably be questioned on her way out. She picked up Subject 8991's folder and started to throw it into her bag, then thought better of it and tossed it into her bottom drawer, exchanging it for another Subject file. She would have something to show them on her way out ('I stayed late to finish this before the weekend, but no such luck,') but not that one.

Not that one.

Even as the thought entered her mind, it alarmed her. So she'd fallen asleep and had a bizarrely vivid dream about some hunky former Outlaw. It had been a draining week, she hadn't slept properly in months, and her night out with the girls had laid bare some unresolved emotional turmoil. She was on edge; it didn't mean she needed to start treating this one as special somehow.

She _wasn't_, though, another part of herself reasoned. That wasn't what this was about. He was no different from any other Subject; she had simply found herself getting too close to a case. It happened sometimes, and when it did, the right thing to do was to go home, get some rest, and take some distance. She just needed to leave it behind for a bit- separate herself. She'd forget all about it in no time.

Emily nodded once, decisively, then turned her back and exited the office.

It worked. The rest she was able to get over the weekend cleared her mind, the distance planted her firmly back in reality, and the more time passed, the more Emily felt completely silly about the whole thing. By Monday morning, she was able to walk past Interrogation Room 1 sparing barely a glance at the closed door behind which Rossi would be hard at work extracting the information that would doubtless be processed and passed along to her by later in the day.

By the time the file arrived on her desk, containing only a second data stick to be added to Dossier 8991, Emily was ready for it. Still, she couldn't stop her stomach from flip-flopping a little as she inserted the stick, and she took a moment to mentally prepare herself before letting her eyes scan over the newest data sets.

This time when the flashes came, Emily kept her cool. Aside from her elevated heart rate and white-knuckled grip on the edge of her desk, it was almost as if she were reading through any other case file.

Almost, but not quite. Because what she saw when she looked at the jumbled data sets, unattached to time and context, was herself. Well, some version of herself, at least. A knowing look, a silent conversation, a shared joke… always the two of them, together. None of it meant anything, though, and there didn't seem to be any sort of message, so why _her_?

Emily wrestled with two conflicting instincts. On one hand, whatever it was about this particular Subject that was calling out to her was obviously getting under her skin and making her a bit loopy. The safest thing to do was to remove herself as much as possible to avoid falling deeper down the rabbit hole. On the other hand, though, if Subject 8991 was up to something, she wasn't about to wait around playing games with him—she was going to ask him to his face.

And with that, she was decided. Emily Prentiss had never been one to play it safe.

She was more prepared this time for what she would face, and the afternoon passed by without Emily feeling the need to run laps around the bullpen just to distract herself. With the much-needed perspective the weekend had provided her, Emily felt more curious today than desperate, and found herself eager to glean as much information as she could from the Subject (and, hopefully, to put the whole question to rest indefinitely.) When the last desk cleared, she headed almost confidently towards Interrogation Room 1.

She had just lifted her hand to punch in Rossi's access code again when the door opened. Emily jumped, snatching her hand back and finding herself face to face with Rossi himself.

_Brilliant, Prentiss, _she chastised herself. _Just fucking brilliant. You couldn't have even checked to make sure the man himself had already left? _

Rossi, however, seemed unfazed and only mildly surprised. "Emily," he greeted her. "Something I can help you with?"

Emily shook her head emphatically. "No. Well, yes… I mean, no, it's not important. I just thought you might have left the latest data stick in there?"

At this, Rossi's expression changed to one of knowing amusement, and Emily fought the urge to go bash her head against the nearest wall. "No, I'm sure I gave it to you earlier," his eyes twinkled, "but why don't you go on in and check to be sure?" He held the door open a bit wider for her. Evidently, Rossi had had his fair share of female oglers at this particular door, and now he, her mentor of all people, thought she was one of them.

"No, it's fine." Emily began to back away, wanting nothing more than for the floor to wash up and swallow her whole. "I'm sure you did give it to me. I probably put it in the wrong file."

Rossi just shrugged, still eyeing her knowingly. "Suit yourself." He chuckled to himself as he closed the door behind him, but his expression became more serious as he studied her face. "Go home, Bella," he said to her, softly. "Get some rest. You've been looking a little pale lately."

"I'm fine," came her automatic reply.

He smiled. "Of course you are," he reassured her. "But a little sleep never killed anyone, right?" Emily just nodded as he placed a fatherly hand on her shoulder and squeezed, then headed out of the office.

As soon as he was safely out of sight, Emily regretfully punched in her own access code (now that he'd seen her, using Rossi's would just arouse suspicion) and slipped into the familiar room.

Seeing Subject 8991, unmoved and unchanged in the days that had passed, only lit a flame under the sense of wonder she couldn't help but feel, and Emily quickly forgot about her run-in with Rossi. She felt her curiosity leap up and spread through her like heat, and she could hardly resist the pull towards him, like a child to the waiting tree much too early on Christmas morning.

She took a moment to centre herself and focus on why she had come here in the first place. _Don't get distracted, _she reminded herself. _Don't let him pull you in. Just get answers. _Then, she placed a hand on his shoulder.

Again, her surroundings faded and re-formed. Subject 8991 was still pacing in the cold, grey cell, and still, he did not see her. The image stayed slightly longer this time, and Emily could make out some of what the voice was saying:

_One: There is no escape. _It wasn't clear whether or not Subject 8991 heard or understood; he just kept pacing, eyes fixed ahead of him as if haunted. Emily shivered.

Then, everything lightened and faded to white. The Subject (no, _Derek_) stood with his back towards her, but turned to face her almost immediately. He gave her a flirtatious smile.

"I knew you'd be back." But Emily could have sworn he looked relieved.

"You seem pretty sure of yourself for someone under deep Interrogation."

Derek only seemed to swallow his response, moving closer to her instead. Emily held up a hand to stall him.

"Wait. I need answers."

"I'll give them to you."

"No, now. I want to talk to you. Why are you giving out projections of me to Rossi?"

Derek blinked, seemingly thrown for a loop for a moment. "Rossi?" Emily folded her arms impatiently across her chest, waiting for him to continue. He shook his head. "I'm not giving anything to anyone. What they're taking from me," he finished almost bitterly, "You'd probably know that better than I do."

"Okay, where do you know me from, then? I've never met you before, but you obviously have some sort of information about me. I just want to know how much and why… I think that's only fair."

"You want to talk about fair?" Derek challenged, suddenly angry, but then seemed to let it drop. "Emily, isn't it better if I just show you?"

"Show me _what_? Last time you wanted to show me something…" she trailed off, rolling her eyes, and shook her head. "Whatever it is you're trying to show me, what does it have to do _me_? Or with how you somehow have information about me that you have no right to?"

"It has _everything_ to do with—" He cut himself off with a frustrated sigh, looked into her eyes, and simply stepped up to her, holding his hand out and waiting. "Please," was all he said.

Emily scoffed and shook her head again, hesitating. She berated herself for even considering it, but she couldn't let go of the conviction that somehow Derek had the answers she wanted, if only she could dig a little deeper. At the same time, some tiny part of her, against all her better judgment, was screaming at her to trust him.

Feeling ridiculous and more than a little stupid for not insisting they settle this on her terms, Emily gave in and placed her hand in his.

* * *

It was three days into a drive that should have taken 13 hours total that Prentiss dared to mention home. She knew she wasn't the only one thinking it; both of them had been careful not to broach the subject of what would happen after Reno, but the uneasy silence that had settled on them for the past day and a half told her that Morgan had the same question on his mind that she did—and that he feared the same answer. Still, she almost hated to break the silence, hesitant to give voice to a fear that was almost too horrible to articulate.

"There was a storm in DC," was all she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead of her. From the passenger's seat, Derek shifted his focus to her briefly.

"Before the radio cut out. DC was hit. We joked about getting to miss it to hang out at the beach." Her mind flashed to the ominous, swirling cloud gathering over San Diego as seen through a side-view mirror. It felt like years ago. "What do you think the team's doing right now?" She asked, in spite of herself, not certain she really wanted to know the answer.

Derek didn't answer her for a minute or so, absently studying the passing scenery outside his window. Then, without turning to her, he lifted his left fist and nudged her shoulder with the side of it. "I'll tell you what they're doing," he said. "Reid's constructed some ingenious shelter and is in the process of outfitting it with solar power. Penelope—" his voice caught a little—"Penelope's pretending she's in a video game. She already knows way more about this than anyone really should and is gathering her arsenal. JJ and Hotch are having a hell of a time trying to keep order; I'd be willing to bet Jack and Henry are behaving better than any of them."

Emily let out a laugh that was half a sob. "And Rossi?"

"Rossi..." Derek thought for a moment. "Well, Prentiss, Rossi's pretty damn crotchety right about now, and that's about all I can tell you about that." He turned and gave her a smile that didn't reach is eyes, but she was ridiculously thankful to him for it anyway.

It had been three days since Morgan and Prentiss had seen another human being, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Since making their way out of Ramona and heading north, they had been unable to resist the urge to stop and search almost every exit. Though the pace was excruciatingly slow, each deserted town and highway exit sprawl they investigated only drove up their level of desperation to find someone, _anyone_, who could give them answers. They had already taken several detours to towns farther out from the highway, just to check, only to have to double back when the excursion inevitably proved fruitless. The result was that, in three days, they hadn't even reached the Southern-most part of the national forests yet.

The Beamers, as Derek had taken to calling them, were everywhere. There weren't necessarily many of them—a few stragglers searching through empty rest stops and relatively barren highway exits, more in proper towns—but _everywhere_. And Morgan and Prentiss had seen enough to know that there didn't need to be many. They could be incapacitated, but only, it seemed, by a bullet to the apparently sensitive front part of the orb from where the spotlight issued. The first time Derek had discovered the weakness, it had been pure, dumb luck. Every time after that had been a supremely well-placed, well-timed shot.

It was another reason for their snail's pace: the need to be constantly on the lookout. They lay low, searching each exit and stocking up on what they needed but not lingering any longer than they had to. The more deserted the area, the better, so they made sure to detour each night as far from the highway and any town as possible before parking the Suburban and sleeping in the back. They got moving as soon as it was light out each morning, washing up in any shower or public bathroom that seemed secure, filling up on gas, and starting their slow trek north again. It was all incredibly time-consuming, but time didn't really mean that much in a world where the only thing that seemed to still matter was waking up each morning and continuing to move forward.

Emily guided the SUV over as they came up on another exit. "It'll be dark soon," she observed. "We should find a place to crash after this."

Derek nodded and rolled down his window in order to survey their surroundings as carefully as possible. They slowed to a crawl to avoid attracting the attention of the Beamers they could see wandering strip mall parking lots and fast-food drive-throughs. Before long, Derek indicated a few blocks ahead. "Gun shop on the right up here." He and Emily exchanged a relieved grin as she cautiously turned into the parking lot. They only had three bullets left between them, which wouldn't keep them alive for long.

As Morgan stocked up on ammo, Prentiss stood guard outside. They had been lucky with supplies at this exit, certainly, but more shops meant, at one time, more people, which now meant more Beamers. She stood tensed, her own gun clutched at the ready, Morgan's tucked at her side. When he finally exited the shop, Prentiss raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, don't forget the plasma rifles," she teased while hurrying to help unload his arms of the boxes of ammo and semi-automatic rifles he carried.

Morgan shrugged. "What, you think we won't need them?"

She let her eyes wander across the street to where a Beamer was stalking like a huge, robotic sentry around an empty Bank of America. "No" she said. "No, we'll definitely need them." They quickly loaded everything into the middle seat of the Suburban, and Morgan settled back into the passenger's seat. Before Prentiss could do the same on her side, however, something caught her eye. She had nearly stepped on it, discarded as it was on the dirty asphalt a few feet away from her door, but its glint in the quickly dimming daylight had her stooping to pick it up instead.

It could have been real gold, but was nonetheless far from being fine jewelry. The style was almost child-like, like a gift a father would give his daughter. A stylized turtle was suspended from the delicate chain, a tiny "R" engraved into the centre of a swirl that composed the inside of its shell. For Rebecca, maybe? Reilly? Emily slid into the SUV and, almost thoughtlessly, placed the necklace over her head and studied the little pendant for a moment. Derek gave her a curious look. "I found it on the ground," she explained.

"Didn't know you were into turtles," he commented, only half interested.

Emily shrugged. "I like it," she said, simply, letting the pendant fall beneath the neckline of her shirt and starting up the Suburban. "It belonged to someone." Then she turned to him and grinned, genuinely excited for their next errand. "And now that we're stocked up on essentials," she said, nodding to the sign for a strip mall a few lights up the road, "time for a Wal-Mart trip. We need camping stuff for Yosemite, and _I _need something to wear that isn't work pants and heels."

They had to incapacitate three Beamers in the parking lot on the way in, then two more on the way out, but the risk was well worth it. Derek couldn't help but smile as Emily practically bounced back to the Suburban, beyond thrilled with their new gear. They had taken some flashlights, a compass, some cutlery, more appropriate shoes and clothing, and other basic essentials, but it was the pillows that she couldn't stop talking about. Derek had initially balked at the idea, arguing that they took up too much space and weren't strictly necessary, but Emily had only eyed him challengingly while placing the biggest one she could find in the cart. "You're welcome to ruin your own neck all you want, but I refuse to spend another night lying flat on that stupid, rock-hard, lumpy trunk floor without a pillow." After trying out a few configurations, they had agreed by the second night to simply leave the entire back row of seats behind and stretch out on the floor to sleep. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it beat sleeping in bucket seats. Derek eventually conceded her point and threw another pillow into the cart with hers.

It _was_ a big improvement, he had to admit as he settled down a few hours later when they finally decided they were far enough out to stop for the night. And the look on Emily's face as she sank down into the makeshift bed next to him was definitely worth the bulkiness and impracticality.

"Mmmm," she sighed, and smiled back at him when she noticed his gaze on her.

"Okay, Princess, I'm not above admitting when I'm wrong."

Emily yawned and adjusted herself to settle in. "Well, I'm happy for you. Just try to stay on your own side tonight, 'kay?" Already her speech was slurring slightly with fatigue.

"Come on, I said I was sorry," He defended. "I move a lot in my sleep, that's all."

"Which is perfectly acceptable, as long as you move in other directions than on top of me."

"Well, see, now that I have this new pillow, I won't have to go looking around for other ones."

"Ew," Emily could almost feel his sideways leer in the dark next to her. She gave him a playful shove. "You're an ass."

"Yeah, so you've told me."

Emily was silent for a minute or so, staring up at the roof of the Suburban and letting sleep tug at her, but there was something else she wanted, no, _needed_ to say before she gave into it. "I'm glad you're here, though."

She felt Derek shift, moving barely a hair closer and still remaining a safe distance from touching her, but she felt the comfort intended in the gesture anyway.

"Me too, Emily," he whispered. "Me too."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: A good proportion of my reviewers are guests, so I just wanted to take the opportunity to say I really, really appreciate each and every one of my reviews. Your feedback makes it that much more worthwhile to sit down and write a challenging story... so thanks so much to all of you! Also: kiddies, please mind the rating.

* * *

"We are _so_ onto you."

Emily inhaled sharply and straightened, startled at the sudden voice behind her. She swiveled her chair around to face a very satisfied-looking Garcia and narrowed her eyes at her two friends as JJ came to lean backwards against her desk, effectively blocking her in.

"Don't you two ever work?" Emily tried to shake off the tension that swept over her. She had known this was coming, but something made her want to stave it off as long as possible. She didn't understand it; she hadn't done anything wrong, which is what she had been telling herself over and over again since she'd returned home the night before. So then why did she keep feeling as if she were holding onto some deep, dark, secret?

"Um, I don't think so, Emily," JJ said.

Penelope shook her head emphatically in agreement. "Nope, uh uh. You don't get to change the subject until you tell us what you were doing in Interrogation Room 1 last night when every normal person in this place was at home already."

Emily shrugged. "I needed to get the latest data stick… Rossi left it at his workstation."

Penelope's mouth dropped. "Oh my—oh, you are _good_." She looked at JJ "Did you see that? She didn't even bat an eyelash while she _lied_ to our _faces_. Honey," she directed her attention back to Emily. "If it weren't for the whole all-powerful, all-knowing thing I've got going on, I totally would have believed you, but not when I know as well as you do that you accessed that data stick at approximately 1425 yesterday afternoon." She crossed her arms in front of her and eyed Emily triumphantly.

JJ winced. "Ooh, Em. Amateur mistake. You'll be paying for that one… Nothing I can do, sorry."

"Oh my god, really, guys? You were the ones who wouldn't shut up about this guy last week—now it's time for an inquisition when I try to go and keep myself in the loop?"

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist!" Penelope clasped her hands together in delight. "You talk a big talk, Emily Prentiss, but in the end you're just as helpless against a chest like that as the rest of us… so? What'd you think? Did you feel his pecs?"

"What? Pen, no, I did not feel his pecs."

Garcia's face dropped. "His shoulders? His forearms? Emily, you were in the room with him and you didn't even cop a feel?"

"Penelope, you know it _is _possible that Emily is a professional woman who doesn't just—oh." JJ cut herself off upon noticing the expression on Emily's face. "Oh, Emily, you totally did cop a feel, didn't you?"

"Jeez, what are we, 12 years old?"

"Answering a question with a question. Very interesting." JJ's expression had begun to match Penelope's.

"Okay, if you must know, I did not _cop a feel_. I may have brushed his hand. But only because… I don't know, he seemed familiar to me, or something."

Penelope and JJ appeared startled. "Familiar? Why would he be familiar to you?"

She shook her head firmly. "He wouldn't. He just seemed like he was at the time. Trick of the light, I guess." _Except it isn't a trick of the light that has you dreaming about him, is it? Or that has you so obsessed with when you're going to see him again that you can't even concentrate on your work? _

Her friends seemed to buy the explanation slightly more easily than she herself did, however, and they left it alone (well, mostly,) for the rest of the day.

Emily had awoken beside him the night before, again close to midnight, and had been at a loss to explain why she felt more rested than she had in weeks. It had been bizarrely difficult to tear herself away, and she had spent most of the time since then battling with the irrational desire do it all over again, just for the rest, crazy dreams be damned.

Still, when the office cleared out and her moment finally came, there was a part of Emily that hated herself as she punched in Rossi's code for not being able to resist. She hated that entering the room and catching sight of him felt like finally letting out a breath she had been holding all day. She hated how her shoulders relaxed the nearer she drew to him, and she hated that her own bed was miles away, but kneeling down beside him felt like coming home. Most of all, she hated that she didn't know what any of it meant, but that didn't stop her from giving in to the nearly overwhelming desire to curl up on her side next to him on the floor, close her eyes, and take his hand in hers.

Subject 8991 had stopped pacing the grey cell and was inspecting the walls of his apparent prison, his fingers skimming the cold, uneven wall searching for weaknesses. The voice continued, hollow, disengaged, and unchanging.

_Two: Your persistence of vision does not come without great sacrifice._

This time, a barely-perceptible pause in his search and a tensing of his shoulders told Emily that he could, in fact, hear the voice, though he clearly wished not to acknowledge it. All she could really think about, though, was how each second brought her closer to her time with Derek and the few words they would get to exchange before she would undoubtedly fall into a much-needed sleep under the strange comfort he offered her.

_How the hell did this happen?_ She berated herself. _How did I get to the point where I suddenly can't sleep unless I'm lying on a hard floor holding the hand of a stranger?_

When the grey cell faded and Derek appeared before her, Emily couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice. "You changed!"

Although their surroundings remained as blank and white as always, Derek now wore a fitted grey tee-shirt and dark jeans. He looked down at himself and laughed. "You sound disappointed." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Like what you saw before?"

Emily raised her eyes to his and smiled, unapologetically coy. "Maybe," she teased. "But… I like this, actually. It kind of suits you."

Derek just laughed again. "Well, I'm glad you approve." He watched her silently for a while, sensing there was something she wanted to say.

"I still don't trust you," she said, finally, her gaze unwavering as she looked him straight in the eyes and watched the hint of well-disguised hurt flash behind them before he mastered it completely.

"I know you don't."

"You want something from me?"

"From you? No."

"From the Bureau, then?"

"In a sense, I guess. But Emily," he held her gaze as if pleading with her to look past his eyes and straight into him. "I'm not a spy, and I would never hurt you."

"I'm not sure I know what that means." Emily chewed her bottom lip. There were so many ways in which this could hurt her—_seriously _hurt her—and most of them didn't require him ever raising a hand to her. "I _want_ to trust you," she said at length.

And there was the familiar hope in his eyes, threatening to overtake his expression even as she could see him fighting to keep it in check. He turned to her and held out his hand, the familiar gesture causing Emily's heart to leap a bit in anticipation. "Then trust me."

* * *

By the time they made it to the southernmost tip of the huge expanse of forest containing Yosemite National Park, Morgan and Prentiss were reaching the end of their fourth day without encountering another human being. They exited the highway as the terrain became more and more heavily forested, effectively blocking out the last of the dying daylight. Before advancing too far into the woods, Derek slowed the SUV and looked over at his partner questioningly.

"So, what's your preference for tonight, mauled by a bobcat or zapped by a Beamer?"

Emily smirked. "I think I'll take my chances with the bobcat, thanks."

Derek was unsurprised and agreed wholeheartedly. Though the highway had been convenient for gas and supplies, the daily battles were exhausting, and the constant vigilance was already wearing on them both. Towns were simply too dangerous to stay in for too long, and the endless detours to find a safe place to rest made it necessary to brave gas stations much more often than they should have had to. The forest road was much narrower and more winding which would also make for slow going, and the wilderness would come with its own set of dangers, but, Derek figured, at least they would get the view.

Still, they couldn't assume that the forest was completely free of Beamers either, and Derek soon pulled over as his headlights in the near-blackness that had descended made him feel exposed and vulnerable.

Even by the time they had finished their dinner of Tostitos and apple slices and completed their cursory bedtime routine, however, it was earlier than he was used to, and Derek knew he wouldn't be able to sleep just yet. He took a seat on the hood of the car and watched Emily cross the street towards him, shaking out the water from her toothbrush, the white of her skin and the faint shine of her eyes just visible to him in the darkness. She stopped when she noticed him.

"You okay?"

"Yep, just thinking about stuff."

Emily nodded, giving him time to elaborate if he wanted to but not pushing the matter. After all, there was only so much to say about suddenly finding yourself on the wrong side of the end of the world. She leaned against the hood next to him, tilting her head up towards the dense weave of treetops that stood out in pitch black relief against the Milky Way. "I bet the stars are amazing here if you get high enough to see them," she mused. "Kinda reminds you it's only been four days, even though it feels like years."

"Cause they're the only thing that hasn't changed, I guess."

Emily seemed to think about this for a minute. "Well," she said, playing absently with the pendant of her necklace, "maybe not the only thing. But… almost." They spent a few more minutes in silence before she straightened. "I'm going to bed. You staying out here for a bit?"

"Yeah. I'll be in soon."

She nodded and rested a hand on the back door. "If a bobcat comes to maul you… just make sure you give a good yell so I know to get away."

Derek laughed softly, knowing what she meant. _Be careful_. He heard the door click closed behind her and leaned back again to study the sky, his view heavily broken by the seemingly endless forest. She was right; not quite everything had changed. It had taken him (and, he suspected, her too) the first three days to realize it though, so preoccupied as they had been with the things they feared were gone forever. Their easy partnership came so automatically that they had seen each other through those first terrifying few days of navigating an entirely new and dangerous world almost without thinking about it. He had taken it all for granted—they were partners; of course they had been together when this all went down, and of course they would be together to face whatever they needed to in order to get themselves back home to their family.

"I'm glad you're here," she had told him, and for the first time Derek had fully realized that he _was_. He was there lying in the back of a Suburban in the middle of an expanse of desert scrub, next to Emily, and things could have gone _so _much differently. The sudden realization of what he _could _have lost only compounded the grieving process he hadn't been aware he had already begun and had startled him so violently that he hadn't been able to sleep for hours afterwards. He had found himself suddenly hyperaware of each shift of Emily's body as she slept next to him and of the utter stillness surrounding them. His mind had become singularly preoccupied by the need to count each of her breaths, and he would awaken with a start every time he started to finally drift off with an irrational terror that they would have simply stopped altogether because he had forgotten to keep on counting.

It had made the drive today different. Not quite uncomfortable, but certainly quieter than previous days. He had been annoyed at himself, aware that he was being completely irrational, but had struggled with it nonetheless because really, what do you say to someone who is literally everything you have left in the world?

And then the anger would come. Because she wasn't his dolly to hold tight when he was scared and play hero for when he wasn't and fill up with all his hopes and dreams and angst just because nothing else that meant anything to him was around to absorb it all. She was so much more than that; she was Emily, his partner and his friend, and what right did he have to fetishize her like he was?

It had made him sullen, mostly out of fear of taking all that anger out on her. She, of course, hadn't questioned it and had taken a clear step back to allow him his time. Derek hadn't been able to decide if he was grateful or annoyed.

But, he thought again as he studied the dark canopy of forest overhead, what she had said was true. It had been four days; a lot of things had changed, but some hadn't. The world may have ended, but they were still partners–still friends–and four days later they were still alive because of it.

Derek finally rose and climbed into the back of the Suburban, pulling the door closed as quietly as possible so as not to wake her. Emily was curled up with her back against one side of the vehicle, giving him room to stretch out next to her. The blanket (actually an unzipped sleeping bag of the highest quality available to them at Walmart) had slipped off her shoulder, and Derek adjusted it as he slipped underneath as well, making sure she was well tucked in. He smiled just a little as he studied her face, relaxed and innocent in sleep, and felt some of the tension of the day drain out of him. She may have been everything he had in this world at the moment, but she had damn well earned the spot several times over, and he could only hope that he was able to live up on his end. Derek fell asleep again listening to his partner's steady breathing, and he didn't wake up until morning.

They had to keep to the west side of the forest, mostly, since roads were scarce along the Sierra Nevada. It meant that they often exited the park for short periods of time, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing because it allowed them to get their bearings, gage their progress, and fill up on gas if needed. Towns were few and far between, though, so they encountered few Beamers, and they had yet to come across one in the forest itself. The respite did wonders for their morale, but it did nothing for their pace, which remained at barely a crawl. The forest roads zigzagged and doubled back on themselves constantly, sometimes narrowing to nearly impassable trails and sometimes dead-ending altogether and forcing them to turn around and waste hours finding their way back and searching for another option. Derek and Emily spent a good deal of time bemoaning the lack of GPS and cursing the useless atlas they had picked up at one of the gas stations, but both agreed that inching along the wilderness beat trawling through ghost towns and risking being vapourized every time they needed to take a bathroom break.

By their second night in the forest, they even felt secure enough to build a fire. Finally having a hot meal was enough to lift both their spirits, and it was almost comfortable sitting huddled by the heat of the fire, talking about trivialities and berating themselves for forgetting to pick up marshmallows. It was only the chill that crept up on them as the flames died that forced them to call it a night and retire to the back of the SUV.

The following day passed in much the same way, except that in late afternoon, still a few hours before sunset, their narrow trail opened up into a clearing bordering a small lake. Instead of turning around at the dead end and heading back the way they had come, though, Emily slowed the Suburban to a stop and gazed for a while at the view.

"Pretty, huh?" she said. "Kind of makes me feel like…" she trailed off, shaking her head.

"Sunbathing topless?" Derek supplied for her. "Because if that's the case, Prentiss, just say the word. I'm willing to take a little afternoon break to admire the view around here. It _is _very pretty." He winked at her.

"You're sweet," she returned sarcastically. "But no. I was going to say like going on a hike or a… bird ramble or something. It's so peaceful."

"A _bird ramble_? Emily, what the hell did you actually used to do on your days off?"

"Definitely not go on bird rambles," Emily laughed. "But that's just it. Everyone is always—_was _always—so busy running around doing whatever it was we did… who ever thought to come out to a place like this and go on a bird ramble?"

"Not me, that's for sure," but Derek was smiling at her. "You know what, though? It's late enough, and I sure as hell don't feel like doubling back for the tenth time today. We could just set up camp early, enjoy a little daylight." Then, noticing her expression, he added, "You don't have to look so grateful, Prentiss. I'm actually still hoping for some topless sunbathing."

"It's March," she said, already hopping out of the vehicle and heading to the back seat to unpack some essentials. Then she paused, locking eyes with him and offering a flirtatious smile. "But check back with me in a couple of months."

By the time the sun set, they had almost forgotten it had been very nearly a week since they had interacted with another person. They made their fire in view of the lake, as exposed as they dared, and the clearing afforded them a more or less unbroken view of the stars that was every bit as breathtaking as Emily had supposed it would be. Unwilling to pull themselves away as long as the fire kept radiating enough heat, Derek and Emily simply spread one of their sleeping bags on the ground and lay side by side on their backs, chatting and stargazing until late into the night.

"I know we're close," Emily sighed, eventually. "A couple more days, tops. If things were normal, we could probably leave tomorrow morning and be in Reno in six hours."

"Sure, but being cautious is what's gotten us this far. Something to be said for just surviving." Derek turned his head towards her, but Emily's focus was on the turtle pendant she was studying as her fingers absently twirled the chain between them.

"Yeah," she replied hastily. "I'm definitely not complaining. I mean—part of me just wants to get there and get answers. It's what we've been waiting for, you know? But there's that other part of me that's dreading it."

Derek didn't have to ask why; he knew exactly what she was dreading. It was that same part of _him_, the one that just wanted her to put her arms around him and shush him and tell him everything was going to be okay, that made him ask, "What do you think we'll find there?"

Emily thought for a while, and her fingers stopped dancing around the pendant, forming a tight fist around it instead. She turned to lie on her side and face him. "I was so sure before, but now… I don't know. People, I hope. But honestly, Derek? I don't think I care anymore, if it's taking us one step closer to home."

"You believe they're still alive."

She didn't have to ask who "they" were. "They're family," she answered firmly. "What else is there to believe?"

There was a beat of silence between them during which Emily only distantly recognized how physically close to one another they had somehow positioned themselves, as if having come to a mutual but unconscious agreement. Derek's lips on hers a moment later, then, was a sudden change but not an altogether surprising one. In fact, Emily realized lazy as she responded to pull him closer, it felt easy and natural, like the logical end to a sentence. It was as if the decision had been made long ago, and only the action had been missing until now. The ease with which they fell into each other made Emily wonder just _how_ long ago it had been.

Their movements were fast and fervent but guided by an instinctual care that prevented them from escalating to desperate. Neither spoke, but Derek reluctantly pulled away just enough to ensure she was looking at him and prepared before entering her in one smooth, swift movement. After that, he eliminated any space between them with one arm around her waist pulling her flush against him and the other firmly gripping her hip and thigh. Equally greedy for closeness, Emily clung to him with both arms and legs, enjoying his rapid, sharp pounding and not allowing him to pull out much in between.

So completely enveloped by one another as they were, it didn't take either of them long. In the stillness that followed as their panting breaths slowly evened out, both still seemed reluctant to pull away. Instead, Derek collapsed just beside her, upper body still covering hers, with his head resting against her breast. Emily kept one arm around him, fingers dancing lightly across the back of his head and neck, while Derek lifted the other and pulled it towards him, teasing her hand and fingers and caressing her forearm with firm, almost possessive strokes up and down.

It was Emily who finally broke the silence. "Well," she began, pensively, "I guess that answers that question."

Derek pressed a light kiss to the soft underside of her forearm before answering, still feeling slightly intoxicated. "What question?"

"If you were the last man on Earth…" She flicked the back of his head teasingly.

At this, Derek abruptly stopped his placid study of her hand, lifted up on one elbow to face her, and gave her a firm pinch on the hip. "You really do think you're just hilarious, don't you?"

Her eyes danced. "I'm fairly certain of it, yeah." Her simper didn't last long, though, as Derek's expression turned serious.

"You're beautiful," he whispered as he studied her, and all mirth faded from her eyes.

"Derek," she began, looking away.

"What?"

"Just because…" She shook her head and sighed, then started over. "I know you're a gentleman. But you don't have to—"

"Emily," Derek cut her off impatiently.

"What?" She found her lips claimed decisively once more by his.

"Just shut up and take the compliment."

Emily bristled slightly, but soon found herself relaxing into the kiss and even rising up to press her body eagerly into him.

Derek groaned softly and pressed his pelvis against hers, only half teasing at this point. "Tomorrow, next gas station," he managed between kisses, "condoms."

She gave him a light smack on one shoulder, "Oh, what, you're so sure you're going to get lucky again anytime soon?" Derek didn't have to respond. It only took one look, and Emily's eye contact faltered. "Right," she laughed. "Condoms it is."


	5. Chapter 5

I'm so sorry for the wait! I'm very much hoping not to make a habit of it.

* * *

The papers littering JJ's desk fluttered at the swift whoosh and slam of her office door. She looked up to see Emily leaning stiffly against it and raised a perturbed eyebrow at her, blowing aside the strand of blonde hair that had settled on her nose and making a show of slapping some of the disturbed papers back onto their haphazard piles.

"Come right on in," she snipped.

Emily didn't move, only wrinkled her nose and twisted her lips into a sideways scowl as if contemplating something highly disagreeable. "You're busy."

JJ's expression softened as she took in her body language, tense and restless and… oh, yes, Emily was _definitely _in a surly mood.

"Not too busy. Sit."

Emily obeyed, studying JJ's disorderly office with a familiar sort of sullen detachment that usually meant something was on her mind. "When was the last time we had any time off from this dump?"

JJ only shrugged, jotting a few notes onto an open file in front of her and then setting it aside.

"We should take a vacation," Emily continued. "Someplace warm."

"Yeah, maybe. But… Bureau needs us. You know how it is."

Emily's brow furrowed. "Seriously, though, I can't even remember the last time I was outside this damn city…" Then her eyes lit up as she remembered something. "Hey, how was your date with Will?"

JJ blushed prettily and seemed to try to fight back the smile that appeared on her lips. "It was good," she replied, trying her best to appear absorbed in something else.

"You two are adorable."

"What's that supposed to mean, 'we two'? There is no 'we two.'"

Emily slid down in her seat to nudge JJ's shin lazily under the table with her foot. "Will got that same smitten look you have on your face. I would puke, but I'm too damn happy for you guys." She gave her friend a broad, toothy grin.

JJ pretended to scowl at her, waving her off irritably. "Yeah, yeah. Now you want to tell me why you're really here?"

Emily's face fell. "Eh…" She made a vague shrugging gesture with one shoulder and slumped backwards in her seat, folding her arms across her chest. "Going a bit stir-crazy out there."

"So you decided to come make sure no one else was able to get any work done either," JJ smirked. "Nice."

Emily sneered at her, then sighed and leaned forward with her elbows on the edge of JJ's desk. "I've been trying to work on that new Subject file…"

At this, JJ's eyebrows rose, and her eyes lit up with intrigue. "Ooooh, and? Sneak any more peeks into the interrogation room?"

But instead of rising to the bait, Emily buried her face in her hands. "I keep dreaming about him," she practically whined, as if the confession were being dragged from her against her will.

JJ's expression changed to one of near alarm. _"Dreaming_ about him?"

"Not like that," Emily huffed, then glanced up at her friend almost guiltily. "Well, not _only_ like that… God, JJ, what the hell is wrong with me?"

"Nothing," JJ responded firmly. "Nothing's wrong with you, Em, but it does sound like you need some distance."

"I told you. We're owed a vacation, and I have ideas."

"Okay, but how about you start with giving the case file back to Hotchner. Ask for another one, or just catch up on some backlogs."

Emily shook her head. "I can't."

"Why not? I'm sure he could find someone else…"

"I'm the best, though."

JJ smirked. "And modest, too."

Emily narrowed her eyes at her. "You know it's true." She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. The truth was, the thought of giving the case file back filled her with an inexplicable yet nearly overwhelming sense of loss. She wouldn't do it, she decided. There was no reason whatsoever why she shouldn't be able to simply do her job. Still, JJ was right, in a sense, and she knew what she had to do—_had _known, really, since the beginning. She had to stop communicating with him; that much was certain, but no, she would stay on the case. "I probably will work on some backlogs for a while, though," she admitted, and JJ seemed fairly satisfied with that.

The two women sat in a comfortable silence for a while—one that Emily broke almost hesitantly. "It's crazy though, right? I shouldn't be having dreams about some former Outlaw I'm supposed to be profiling." There was no way she was anywhere near ready to admit that she didn't just dream about him—that she had actually had conversations with the guy and had returned, more than once, of her own volition. That _was _crazy, and she certainly didn't need anyone to confirm it for her.

JJ gave her a sad, almost pitying smile that had Emily bristling slightly. "It's not crazy, Em," she said softly. "You just haven't had much to focus on lately outside of work."

Her words hung between them, and Emily understood the implication loud and clear. From the moment she had awakened in the hospital last year with an empty womb and an empty heart and just… _empty_, there hadn't been many places Emily had been willing or even able to focus her now limited energies. There was the pain—a constant, burning, unyielding ache—and there was work.

"I don't think I ever thanked you."

JJ's eyes shot up sharply and found hers, surprised and wondering.

"You and Penelope," Emily clarified. "For—for after."

"You don't have to thank us," JJ shook her head quickly, brow knitted in protest. "You don't ever have to thank us. It's what we're here for."

"But the two of you—" Emily shook her head, obviously struggling to find words. "I don't know what I would have done if… I mean, I don't think I would have made it."

JJ studied her friend's posture for a moment, tight and wound in on herself as if it were taking a physical effort just to keep herself from getting up and running out of the room. "You would have," JJ assured her gently. "The point is, you're not crazy, okay? Honestly, you're probably completely right about that vacation, but since we both know that's not happening anytime soon…" She paused and seemed to take some time deliberating over her words. "Maybe if you just opened yourself up a little. Go on a couple dates—see what's out there."

"I don't want to date." Emily shook her head definitively, her tone almost harsh with insistence.

"I'm not saying—"

"I don't want to date," she repeated. "I can't. It feels… wrong."

"Okay," JJ nodded her concession. "But there's going to come a time when it won't feel so wrong anymore." She reached across her desk to touch her friend's wrist, trying to hold her attention as Emily just shook her head and looked away. "Emily… I promise you that."

* * *

She knew what she had to do, and she also knew that she owed him nothing. Still, Emily found herself slipping into the familiar interrogation room after hours just, she told herself sternly, one last time.

She didn't understand where this need came from to explain herself to him; the last thing she needed to do, she knew, was justify her decision. Then again, she didn't really understand much of anything related to Case File 8991. What she did know was that she had been steadily letting her guard down around a still unknown Subject who could very possibly be dangerous and who clearly had some way of getting inside her head, all because she couldn't seem to resist the feeling she got from him of finally, _finally_ having the hollow inside her filled in again. It was behaviour unfitting of an Agent of the Bureau, and it had to stop.

But, Emily admitted to herself sadly, she was weak. She was risking her safety and that of others for the sake of a few precious hours of uninterrupted rest, but she hadn't yet been able to make herself stay away. It was that same weakness that brought her here tonight, against all better judgment as always, taking one last unnecessary, selfish risk. She _would _walk away—she still had enough objectivity to understand the absolute necessity of that—but she would say goodbye to him first.

She didn't give herself much time to think, not wanting to allow herself any leeway for making up excuses. She crossed the floor purposefully and grasped his hand.

_Three: Let go of the tangible mass of your mind. It is only an illusion. _

This time, Emily recoiled along with Subject 8991 at the disembodied voice, its ominous, metered chant strangely consolatory and almost alluring. _What a strange way to interrogate someone, _she thought absently, but she supposed with Outlaws you really did have to be cautious sometimes.

The Subject himself was pacing his cell once more, though more slowly this time and with less purpose. His eyes seemed a little bit out of focus. When the scene faded, Emily couldn't help but be relieved not to have to watch anymore.

There was grass beneath her feet, she realized a second later, and solid ground that she could actually navigate. Derek made to approach her the instant he saw her, his hands poised to grasp both her arms. If there was one thing Emily had learned about him so far, it was that he wasn't much for keeping his hands to himself. Almost reluctantly, she stepped back before he could reach her, offering him a closed-lipped smile to soften the blow. She watched his eyes widen momentarily, a flash of disappointment and anxiety crossing them, but he stilled, dropped his arms, and waited in silence for her to speak.

Suddenly, Emily felt very, very exposed. Her eye contact faltered. "I dream about you." She laughed self consciously and ducked her head to look at the ground. When he didn't answer, she hazarded a glance up at him. "But you already know that, don't you?"

The corners of Derek's lips quirked upward, but his expression remained conflicted, and he seemed on edge, waiting for her to continue.

"I don't understand how…" she murmured, then gathered herself and continued more confidently. "Why did you turn yourself in?"

Derek seemed slightly taken aback at this but composed himself quickly. "I just wanted to be heard."

"Heard saying what? By whom?"

"Emily…" His eyes bore into her, but Emily stood firm against the urge to shrink under his searching gaze. "I think you know."

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut as if it would make any of this somehow easier to swallow. "This is fucked up," she whispered.

"Emily?" The tremor in his voice was unmistakable.

Emily raised her head to face him squarely. "I can't see you anymore." She winced slightly at how it came out, but the joke was obviously lost on Derek as the anxiety in his eyes rose to near panic.

He swallowed thickly. "What exactly does that mean?"

"I'm staying on your case. I'm following your interrogation… but I won't talk to you like this anymore."

Derek seemed to struggle to keep his arms at his sides, no doubt desperate to reach out and pull her closer as he was wont to do. "But," he obviously wasn't satisfied. "Does that mean—"

"Goodbye, Derek." Emily stepped forward, swiftly crowding his personal space, and pressed her lips to his cheek.

* * *

It didn't take Morgan long to learn that, even well-sexed, Emily Prentiss was not a morning person.

With no curtains and little circulation from the minimally-cracked windows of the Suburban, Derek awoke as always at the first beams of sunlight streaming into the vehicle, hot and insistent despite the heavy shade and early Spring chill outside. Knowing the heat and stuffiness inside would soon become prohibitive, he relaxed fully and allowed himself to soak up the last of the dawn's cool peacefulness.

There was something different this morning, though, and Derek couldn't help the contented smile that curled his lips when he looked down at the head of mussed black hair resting just beneath his shoulder. Emily's soft, even breathing tickled the skin over his chest, and he had to chuckle softly noticing her position, tucked in close beside him, one leg brought up to cover his, crowding them both against one side of the Suburban with a stretch of empty space behind her.

He couldn't help it; he pulled her closer to him with the arm that was already around her, turning to his side towards her and enveloping her in a full-body embrace. Emily groaned unhappily at the shift, and Derek pressed his lips soothingly to the top of her head. "This beats the hell out of staying on my side," he sighed.

"Morgan," came her ground out response. "Shut the fuck up."

He laughed again and lowered his head to whisper in her ear, "I just never took you for such a cuddler, Prentiss."

She huffed crankily into his chest and this time attempted to push away from him, her movements limited from his strong grip on her. "It's four o'clock in the goddamn morning," she settled on griping, her sleep-laced voice coming out almost a whine. "Why the hell are you talking?"

Derek had no idea where she got the idea that it was four o'clock; the angle of the sun told him it was at least a quarter to seven, but she sounded so utterly affronted by the idea of being awake that he decided to let it go. He lay still and silent for another ten minutes or so, simply enjoying the feel of her body relaxing into his, until her head popped up again and she wriggled out of his embrace to prop herself clumsily onto one elbow as if disoriented from a sudden start from sleep. She squinted sleepily down at him, her brow furrowed accusingly as if it were his fault (well, he reflected, it probably was.) He put on one of his most endearing smiles and gazed back at her until she huffed again, grabbed the discarded sweatshirt next to her, threw it on over her singlet, and crawled towards the back door.

"Where are you going?"

"Have to piss," she mumbled grouchily, her voice still husky with the remnants of sleep.

Derek watched as she blearily stumbled outside and slammed the back door, then lay back and grinned widely at the roof of the Suburban. "Good morning, Emily," he murmured to himself.

By the time Emily emerged from the woods back into their clearing, Derek had already started the fire and was boiling water. She was never much for conversation before her first cup of coffee, so he greeted her with a wordless smile and was pleasantly surprised when she sat down directly beside him, resting her chin on top of his shoulder while they waited.

After gulping down their customary plastic mugs of the disgusting instant coffee they had agreed was an absolute necessity, Derek began gathering the various supplies they had used to wash and repack.

"Let's stay here another night," Emily said suddenly, as if trying to get the suggestion in before she could talk herself out of it.

"Why, something you want to commemorate, Prentiss?" He winked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

"You're funny. No, I just… the thought of getting back in that car again makes me want to puke, everything's a mess, and I think we both might benefit from some exercise and the chance to get a little organized.

Derek hesitated. For the past week, Reno had been their goal, and neither of them were the type of people to ever pause before reaching their goal. In light of their previous night's conversation, though, he knew Emily was feeling as conflicted about Reno as he was, and given that they didn't know what type of dangers would be awaiting them there, it probably wouldn't hurt to rest up a bit beforehand. Plus, it would give them time to get on the same page regarding what they might do once we got there. Derek raised his eyes to his partner's and smiled. "Anything for you, Princess."

Emily rolled her eyes again, but she was smiling as she hopped up and threw open one of the car doors to rummage around in some of the numerous bags of gear they had acquired along the way. When she had apparently gathered all she needed, she popped her head out and smirked at him. "Okay, first things first—gimme your clothes."

Derek's eyebrows rose. "Mmmm, well yes ma'am." He sidled over to her, already pulling his top over his head. "Why, Emily Prentiss—"

But Emily had stopped paying attention and had started to empty his go-bag. "Hold up there, Cowboy. Bear in mind I'm about to wash your nasty-ass laundry, so you can keep doing whatever that is you're doing, but my suggestion is that you spend the time thinking of how you're going to make it up to me." It was Emily's turn to give him a wink.

"You're doing laundry?"

Emily held up the bottle of all-purpose camping soap. "Yep, you smell. And I could hear a river a ways back in the woods this morning."

Derek blinked. "So what am I supposed to wear?"

She eyed him as if he were a little slow and shrugged one shoulder. "I dunno, figure it out." She made a show of grimacing as she dropped his worn clothing into a plastic bag along with hers. "Too bad Walmart doesn't carry hazmat suits," she muttered, just loud enough for Derek to hear.

But something had occurred to him in the mean time, and the leer had returned to his face. "Wait, what are _you _gonna be wearing?"

Emily just raised her eyebrows and gave him an enigmatic smile.

As it turned out, he did have some clothes that Emily deemed clean enough already, and she herself, to Derek's acute disappointment, had also kept aside a portion of her small wardrobe. Emily returned from her chore at the river to find the Suburban tidied up, and they spent the rest of the day exploring the area, with Morgan teasing her about finally getting her bird ramble after all.

It was nice; they fell into their usual rhythm practically effortlessly, and aside from Derek's flirting being more forward than usual, it was almost as if nothing had changed. They didn't touch a whole lot during the day, but they didn't shy away from it either. It was as if they had reached an unspoken agreement that while physical comfort was acceptable now, comfort was really all it had to be.

Still, that didn't prevent Derek from crowing a bit inwardly when Emily nudged his legs apart slightly so she could sit between them in front of the fire that night. More than happy to oblige, he snaked his arms around her so her back could rest fully against his chest and even felt a little silly at how much he was enjoying the feeling of her hair against his cheek until Emily swore suddenly.

"Shit."

"What is it?"

"Ugh," she started to disentangle herself from him and rise. "All our clothes are still drying out on the rocks."

Derek tightened his grip to pull her back towards him. "We'll get 'em tomorrow."

"You ever been camping before? They'll be insulating a beaver dam by then. It's okay, I'll go now."

"I'll come with you."

"Nah, stay," Emily placed a hand on his shoulder as she stood. "I'll just wash up at the river and bring them on my way back."

Derek nodded. "You got your gun?" He called after her retreating form, knowing neither of them ever went anywhere unarmed, especially alone, but always needing to be sure just in case. Emily just pulled hers from its place at her hip and waved it for him to see without turning around.

The river wasn't far—less than a ten minute walk from their camp—and the moon was out, but the forest was thick enough that Emily had to make good use of the flashlight to get there. To her relief, their clothes had made it through without too many casualties to animals (she'd be returning with maybe one fewer ugly tee-shirt, and she was pretty sure Derek was down a pair of boxers which amused her greatly anyway, so she wasn't about to complain.) Trying to complete a bedtime routine of sorts at the river was clumsy and resulted in some unnecessary splashing around, but the rushing water was much cleaner than that in the lake, and it definitely beat trying to wash your face one-handed from a water bottle.

The way back proved more cumbersome, however, since Emily had forgotten to take a bag with her and had to carry all the clothes beneath one arm to leave the other hand free to hold the flashlight. "Damn it," she hissed as she dropped yet another article of clothing onto the forest floor. As she bent to retrieve it, though, a distinct rustle of dry twigs and leaves made her freeze, hardly breathing as her ears strained to make out what direction the noise had come from. A second crunch had her dropping the clothes, switching off the flashlight, and drawing her weapon. Bear, bobcat, or Beamer, whatever it was making those noises was fairly sizeable, and Emily definitely didn't want to call undue attention to herself.

A few more crunches made one thing abundantly clear, though: whatever it was was getting closer. Emily pressed herself behind a large tree, finger resting on the trigger of her gun, praying for a bear. As the crunches drew ever closer, though, her heart dropped as she realized she wasn't hearing any of the grunting, sniffing, or snorting she might expect from one. Emily forced herself take a calming breath. It could still be a bobcat or a mountain lion, she told herself. If it _was _a Beamer, she would only get one shot, and it had to be perfect. In the darkness, she would be at a distinct disadvantage.

The noise was nearly upon her now, and Emily peeked cautiously as far around the tree as she could manage without displacing herself. Nothing. _Damn_. She took one more deep breath, held her weapon out in front of her, and stepped out from behind her shelter, finger already half squeezing the trigger, milliseconds away from firing.

A flash of skin in the patchy moonlight was all it took to have her faltering for a split second. In her complete shock, her finger eased up on the trigger, and her weapon lowered minutely.

Back at the camp, Derek's blood stilled in his veins as the nighttime silence was cracked open by a single sharp, startled scream.


	6. Chapter 6

You guys are seriously the best!

* * *

Emily's brain seemed to be working very, very slowly.

Her wrist throbbed from the sudden, punishing strike, and she understood her gun had been twisted out of her grip. Her heart pounded, her head ached, and her muscles were on fire as she twisted, kicked, and clawed blindly at the force that had knocked her flat on her back, her head connecting with a painful, hollow thump with the forest floor. Her body registered arms, legs, hands on her and words (_words!_) spoken to her or to another, indistinguishable above her struggle, but unmistakably human.

Emily had no idea what was going on.

A particularly vicious backhand left her ears ringing, and in the dizzying relative stillness that followed as she tried to clear her head, finally, she could make out something comprehensible. There were two voices, she determined, both male:

"Nothin' else on her?"

"Nope," and she was dragged up and shoved against the tree behind her, both hands pinned above her head…. And the barrel of her own weapon tucked menacingly beneath her chin.

Everything slowed down from that point, and Emily's mind seemed to start working overtime to catch up. There was a person. Right in front of her… and another off to his side. From what little she could see, both men were dirty, and both were bearded. They were obviously strong, but there was something a little wild in their movements, and if Emily was half the profiler she thought she was, aside from the triumph of gaining a weapon, they weren't taking any particular pleasure in this.

Still, she didn't particularly care for the spark of interest that flashed behind this one's eyes as he brushed her hair back with the gun to get a better look at her. "Well, hey there, cutie."

Still reeling from the shock, Emily wasn't mincing her words. "Who the fuck are you?" Her voice came out a bit shriller than she would have liked.

They ignored her. "You with anyone?" Their words were gruff, emotionless, ground out as if they were unused to using more than monosyllables.

Emily swallowed. "I'm alone." She bit her lip, nearly bursting with the impulse to interrogate her attackers, despite her less than ideal position right now. There were people, _alive_, and close. And if these men were here, there could be others.

"Men's clothes here," the second man informed his companion.

Emily squeezed her eyes shut as the gun was pushed harder against the soft flesh under her chin. "Where's your boyfriend?"

"Ah—I just took whatever clothes I found first. Please just let up a little."

There was no anger in his features as he studied her—no impatience or fear or excitement either. After what seemed like forever, he simply lowered the gun, released her wrists… and tossed her to the ground like a ragdoll.

He was upon her even before she could right herself, but Emily managed one good kick to his face before finding her arms restrained behind her by the second man. Meanwhile, her attacker simply wiped the blood from his nose and straddled her legs.

"Just calm the fuck down, Sweetheart," he ordered as the buttons went flying from her shirt under his fisted hands, "It's nothin' personal."

Distantly, Emily registered the pain of the unnatural angle of her shoulders along with the urge to vomit, but any signal from her body was lost among her racing mind's single, deafening cry: _fight_. And fight she did, for what little good it did with her movements being almost totally restricted. She felt him claw at her abdomen and tug roughly at the waistband of her pants. The corners of her vision faded out in panic; her mind became fuzzy with white noise. There was a deafening bang, and for a millisecond Emily was sure that something had fallen apart inside her and died.

The man's head exploded.

Derek was approaching from the side, finger on the trigger of his Glock which was now trained on the man behind her. He didn't flinch, didn't even blink at the rifle that was almost immediately pointed back at him. It didn't take long for Emily to react. With her arms suddenly free, she kicked the dead man's legs off her own and scrambled to retrieve her gun from where it had fallen next to his body. She was on her feet in an instant, focused and ready, as she had been hundreds of times before, to back up her partner at all costs.

"Drop it," she ordered coolly.

With the odds of the standoff suddenly shifted against him, the other man seemed to hesitate. His finger caressed the trigger of the rifle for a silent minute longer, but his focus wavered slightly.

"_Drop it_," she repeated, her voice laced with tacit threat. Slowly, very slowly, the man obeyed. He lowered his rifle, holding it out to his side for them to see before dropping it onto the forest floor.

"Okay," he told them simply, "This is a good death." He waited, facing Derek squarely, his empty hands still raised slightly from his sides.

Derek hazarded a glance at Emily, but his partner's focus was unwavering. He made the call. "I suggest you get as far away as possible," he told the man, his voice booming with oft-used authority. "And I suggest you do it quickly, or I'm likely to change my mind." He took a menacing step forward. "You come near us again, and I will kill you on sight, you understand me?"

The man stared incredulously at him for moment, then let a humourless chuckle hiss between his teeth and turned to walk away, two guns trained at his back until the darkness swallowed him.

The minute he was out of sight, Derek felt the terror return. It had seized his entire body like an awful, hollow sickness the moment he had heard her scream but had been quickly drowned out by adrenaline and then by unadulterated, consuming rage. He felt his arms go weak with it, and he tucked his gun away, turning to Emily and cursing himself for being incapable of schooling his expression first, knowing what she would see there.

"Are you—"

She shot him a brief but unambiguous glare that shut him up quickly, pulled her blouse closed angrily in front of her, and turned away silently to gather up the clothing she had dropped. Not knowing what else to do, Derek helped to retrieve the scattered pieces until Emily straightened and, without a word, headed off in the direction of their camp. Derek followed as closely as he dared, still in alert mode but trying to give her the space she obviously needed.

Their walk back was silent, and their arrival at the camp was equally so. Emily immediately disappeared into the SUV and slammed the door behind her, leaving Derek alone with the nauseated feeling that was quickly replacing the adrenaline draining from his body.

She emerged only a short time later, wearing sweatpants and a zipped fleece and carrying something that Derek recognized once she got close enough to the fire as the clothes she had previously had on. For some reason, he started a little when she unceremoniously threw them into the fire and sat down on the nearby log to watch them burn. Derek approached her cautiously, sitting down next to her, close but not touching, and tried to put words to the fear that was almost choking him.

"Did they—are you hurt?"

She made a sort of jerking motion with her head. "I'm good."

"Emily," he kept his voice soft, feeling the waves of anger coming from her but needing to keep her from shutting down to him completely, "He would have killed you."

"Yeah."

"So I'm not going to apologize for—"

"You think I give a shit that he's dead?"

Derek paused. "Yeah. Yeah, I think you do. _I _do. But I'd kill him again if it came to it."

Emily absorbed this for a long time, staring absently into the flames. Finally, she closed her eyes and sighed, dropping her head and hugging herself more tightly. "I'm a fucking idiot."

The words seared at him, and his voice came out a wounded growl. "Don't you dare—"

"I hesitated," she insisted. "I saw human flesh and I just, I…" Emily chewed her bottom lip, staring at the ground in front of her, then lifted her eyes to the dancing flames and continued more softly. "I think I forgot who the monsters really are."

So that was it, he thought. Emily had a lot of reasons to be angry about what had transpired that night, but it was the brutal illustration of just how far they had come in only a week that was very clearly tormenting her. Derek fought against every instinct he had to pull her closer to him and settled for sharing her silence.

"Well," she said at length, bitterly, "at least we know we're not the only ones left. I'm going to bed."

He watched her go, still struggling with the desire to shadow her every movement, and made himself stay back a while before following her to the Suburban. He found her curled uncomfortably on the semi-reclined passenger's seat, her pillow and an extra blanket gone from their space in the back.

Hours later, Emily's hand rose to her neck in an unconscious search for comfort, and for the first time that night, she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. Her necklace must have been torn off in the fight.

* * *

"Penelope, get your ass back up here," Emily panted, swiping at the bead of sweat that tickled the baby hairs next to her temple. "You didn't even break a sweat."

"I do not sweat, Dollface, I glisten," Penelope explained from her position draped over a curl bench. She flicked a page of her comic book enthusiastically. "Once it gets beyond a glisten, I prefer to sit and just pretty up the place."

"Honestly, Pen," JJ added. "Why do you insist on coming with us every time—and making us wait for you to get ready, might I add—when you're not even planning to work out with us?"

Penelope was unruffled. "Any excuse to don an adorable headband. Plus, when else do I get to see my beauties in action?" She winked at Emily and JJ, sweating it out side by side among the row of identical treadmills in the Bureau's gym.

JJ laughed. "Since when do _you _need an excuse to wear a neon headband in public?"

She pretended to consider this for a moment. "Okay, I concede to your very excellent insight. So? You two are hot, and I like to ogle. Best get used to it, Kitten."

Emily rolled her eyes. "Remind me again why we keep coming back here, anyway. This place is like a dungeon."

JJ seemed surprised by the comment. "Where else would we go?"

She pushed back the image that had been creeping up on her: cool breeze caressing her face instead of hot, stagnant air, green grass beneath her running shoes, a cherished friend at her side… She shook her head. "Nowhere."

"How're the headaches, Sugar?"

Emily had to hand it to Penelope—she _was _trying awfully hard to sound nonchalant. She rolled her eyes. "Aside from the ones you two keep giving me by asking me about them every five minutes, they're fine."

It was a lie. The headaches were becoming a daily occurrence now—and they were getting worse. If that weren't bad enough, Emily's mind was _definitely _playing tricks on her, feeding her images out of nowhere that would suddenly give her these annoying feelings that she was doing things all wrong. There was no rhyme or reason to it: one minute she would see herself as skinny and sullen and just-turned-eleven, dancing to her favourite Bauhaus song behind her closed bedroom door before collapsing on her bed and letting the music and a cherished book take her far, far away from this place where she had no friends and spoke little of the language. The next minute she would come to her senses and remember that that had never been her room, and that had never been her bed—that she had never listened to that album or read that book, and she didn't truly know who that little girl was.

The images were intrusive and confusing; she was having more and more difficulty concentrating on her work and remembering why she was doing what she was doing in the first place. And worst of all, her friends were starting to notice.

Emily shook off the remainder of her mind's most recent flight of fancy, concentrating on the off-grey, windowless walls of the gym, the sometimes-flickering fluorescent lighting and the rows of identical, black and white exercise equipment. _This _was where she trained. There had never been a sunlit park, never been blades of grass tickling her bare ankles as she deviated from the trail and ran ahead, turning back to egg on her training partner with some choice trash talk, and there certainly had never been Derek's voice calling back to her.

And that, thought Emily as she finished her jog and slowed to a walk, was a whole other can of worms. She had kept her word, diligently avoiding Interrogation Room 1 since her last conversation with him the week before—had avoided even _thinking _about him, but her brain seemed to have other ideas. Trading in dreams for elaborate fantasies did nothing to alleviate her growing concerns over her mental health and had even driven her to consider the possibility that JJ was right, and that what she really needed was to play the field a little just to get her mind off things. If she was honest with herself, though, the real problem wasn't the fantasies at all; it was that she _liked _them so much. And, so help her, she missed him.

She tuned out her friends' chatter—it was getting alarmingly easy to do that lately—as they ended their workout, showered, and dressed for work. Still immersed in her thoughts, Emily nearly jumped out of her skin as her name was called from close beside her.

"Agent Prentiss."

She whirled around, one hand to her chest, wide, startled eyes landing on Hotchner who beckoned to her from the door to his office.

"Sir," she greeted, probably too quickly. "I didn't see you there, I'm sorry. I was just—" She winced, clamping her mouth shut to stop herself from rambling and wondering why it was she had this feeling of getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"It's not a problem, Prentiss," he responded patiently, but without smiling. He gestured to her to follow him.

The minute the door shut behind them and Emily found herself standing before his desk, her muscles seized with a momentary, irrational panic. _He knows_, some utterly paranoid part of her brain whispered at her. _You've been betraying the Bureau since the minute you laid eyes on that Subject. _She cleared her throat nervously.

"Yes, Sir?"

"I finished going through Case File 8989 today. You do remarkably thorough work."

She paused. "Sir?"

"Your recommendation has been passed along to the appropriate parties. The work you put into a challenging case is commendable; congratulations are in order, and I'm offering them to you."

Emily let out a breath. "Oh—well, it's nothing, really. I'm just happy it was helpful"

"It's not nothing," he insisted. "You have a gift, Emily. The Bureau is lucky to have you."

"Thank you, Sir." She shifted under her boss's gaze as he continued to appraise her from beneath a severe, knitted brow.

"You appear… relieved," he told her. "Were you under the impression that you deserved censure?"

"Of course not, Sir." She shook her head emphatically. "I'm just glad the Bureau is satisfied with my work."

Hotchner nodded slowly, leaning forward in his chair. "Subject 8991," he began, and Emily felt her heart stutter and her throat constrict again. "I had expected to have a preliminary report from you by now."

Emily swallowed hard. "It's forthcoming, Sir, I—"

"JJ tells me you may not be feeling your best lately."

She tensed. "JJ's concerned. She has no reason to be," she answered coolly.

"I'm glad to hear that," Hotchner said, but he did not appear entirely convinced. "If she did have reason, though, I think you'd find the Bureau can be quite accommodating."

"Hotch—" The nickname flew from her mouth without her consent, and her boss looked up sharply." Emily bit her lip, startled. "Sir," she corrected herself. "She has absolutely no reason to be concerned."

He studied her for a long moment, then nodded once. "Good. You'll have a preliminary report to me by the end of the week, then."

"I will. Absolutely, Sir."

It figured JJ would rat her out to the boss, Emily thought as she made a hasty retreat from his office and headed back to her workstation, still bristling from the betrayal. Those two had always had—whatever it was they had between them, and she had always suspected there wasn't much that the blonde withheld from him. Still, there was no doubt that JJ had meant well, and if Emily was honest with herself, she needed a good kick in the ass when it came to this particular case.

It wasn't like she had been avoiding it, technically, it was just that she had been so much more productive with other projects lately—those that didn't distract her by making her skin tingle with the absence of longed for touch every time she took a look at them.

And when she really thought about it, there had been something else, too. Hotchner's words, she realized, had all but confirmed what she supposed she had known all along but had never really stopped to think about: the Bureau knew she was good, and her recommendations were acted upon. And although the idea of having that much power over Derek's fate made her slightly queasy, the thought of someone else having it instead made her even more so.

Sighing, Emily picked up his case file and inserted the data stick for a random interrogation. She would get this done even before Hotchner's deadline, she decided. She had ended her association with Derek a week ago; now it was time to start working towards closing Subject File 8991 for good.

Except it was never going to end that easily, and Emily was pretty sure she had known that all along. By 20 minutes into the datastream, she was seeing red.

They were all there. Rossi, Hotchner, the Doctor… JJ and Penelope. Their faces practically stared back at her from the jumbled array of data that she interpreted without a thought. Emily felt a hot flush of anger spread across her face up to the tips of her ears, and she clenched both fists so hard she nearly broke the skin of her palms with her fingernails.

It was one thing if this Subject wanted to get inside her head and mess with her a little bit; it was quite another if he was even _thinking _of doing the same with her team. Emily looked across the busy maze of workstations to the closed door of Interrogation Room 1 and made a decision.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks so much for sticking with me guys, it's been an insane couple of weeks for me, and this story has a tendency to kick my ass around the block every once in a while, but I promise you I am kicking back as hard as I possibly can.

* * *

Rossi looked up, startled, from his workstation at her sudden and unceremonious entrance.

"Take lunch," Emily ordered him, barely pausing to register her startlingly bold tone towards her superior which, at any other time, would probably have had her floundering for an appropriate apology. When Rossi didn't respond, she finally turned her attention to him and felt some of the ire leave her.

It might have been funny, had she been in any sort of mood to laugh. Emily had never in her life seen David Rossi flustered before. "Emily?" he queried, utterly taken aback.

"I want to interrogate him for a while."

He sputtered a little. "Emily, the extraction process… I could get into it deep if something went wrong…"

"You know I can do it." Emily's voice remained steely with resolve.

Rossi straightened. He cocked his head slightly, and his lips thinned. Something quiet and dangerous skittered across his expression, then retreated once more into shadow. "What did you see?" He demanded.

"Nothing you'll ever have to worry about." She fixed a hard gaze on the inert Subject before them.

Rossi scoffed. "Come on, Emily, it's me. Has pulling that shit on me ever worked out for you before?"

Emily's eyes did a quick double-take back to her mentor as the scolding finally penetrated her racing thoughts. She wouldn't back down, though. "It really might be nothing," she tried to placate him. "I just want to be sure."

"Like hell it's nothing. 'Nothing' doesn't get you anywhere near this worked up. You think I haven't noticed? You've been walking around like you're being haunted for weeks now."

Emily felt something clamp down tight inside her. Her eyes hardened. "Well, in case you've forgotten, I carry a few ghosts with me."

"Bella," he soothed, "You think we don't all have our ghosts? What I'm worried about is _this._" He gestured to her, standing in the middle of his interrogation room looking slightly wild in her single-minded anger.

She sighed, conceding just a little bit. "There's something specific that I want to look more deeply into, and you know you can't translate this stuff like I can. It'll be faster if I just do it. It'll help me do my job, and you will never, ever have to worry about it. I'll make sure of that."

To her surprise, Rossi dropped his eyes amusedly and chuckled to himself. "Oh, I know you will." But then he turned serious. "Do what you have to do," he said, but he hesitated to leave the room. "Emily, if he's dangerous..."

"He's not," she assured him, then smirked. "Besides, what's he going to do, pull me in with him? Please, Rossi. Take lunch, okay? I'll be fine."

Rossi held up his hands, ducking his head in surrender, and made his exit. As soon as the door closed behind him, Emily's eyes snapped to the Subject in the centre of the room. She approached him purposefully and steeled herself, gathering up the anger that had stilled somewhat during her conversation with Rossi. She would be needing it if she wanted to keep up her resolve.

"Damn it," she muttered, and, closing her eyes, grabbed his forearm.

As the grey cell formed around her, Emily looked away, not interested in seeing the Subject's naked body or the growing dullness in his eyes, not interested in hearing the drone of the strange voice or in dwelling for any length of time on what it could possibly be trying to say.

_Four… _

But Emily blocked it out, her anger growing with every second that brought her closer to him. By the time she felt soft, grassy earth beneath her feet and spotted him a few yards away, her vision was foggy with it.

He had been seated beneath a tree when she arrived, but he moved to stand as soon as he spotted her. Emily didn't stop to wonder where the hell the tree had come from, nor did she pause to acknowledge the way her heart broke at the momentary flash of ecstatic relief on his face, which quickly yielded to alarm as he took in her demeanor.

The effect he had on her only served to heighten her fury, though, and Emily didn't even remember closing the distance between them. Derek's mouth opened as if he were about to say something, but Emily wasn't about to stop and let him speak; both her hands connected firmly with his chest.

"You think this is _funny_?" She cried, shoving him backwards. To her surprise, Derek lost his footing and fell easily. "You think you can blackmail me into giving you whatever the hell it is you want?"

"_Blackmail_ you? Emily, what the—" Derek climbed back onto his feet to find her eyeing him suspiciously, eyes nearly wild with hostility but almost equally wounded.

"No." She held up a finger in warning, shaking her head silently and obviously struggling for words, and Derek obediently clamped his mouth shut. "You don't get to talk right now." She turned away, paced a few times, then whirled back to face him. "You've been jerking me around since the beginning." He took a breath, but she continued before he could protest. "And you know what? That's okay, because I don't give a rat's ass what happens to me. You know what I want?" Derek shook his head silently, his eyes beginning to mist over.

"I want to _sleep_. I want to just stop fucking existing for a while. And for whatever _fucked up _reason, you gave that to me."

"Emily, don't…" He pleaded her, but she paid him no mind, her voice low and dangerous ans she continued.

"So you can play your little mind games on me. You can give me your non-answers and show me your bullshit fantasy world, and you can send me straight to a goddamn asylum to spend the rest of my life strapped to a table and hallucinating about fucking you in the back of a truck." Derek's shoulders slumped, and he curled forward ever so slightly as if wounded.

Emily only crowded closer to him. She poked him, hard, in the shoulder with two fingers, her voice low and dangerous. "But you don't ever," she poked him again. "_Ever_ come near my team."

Derek's eyes widened and shot to hers. "Who?"

Emily shook her head warningly, but Derek seemed undeterred.

"Your team, is it—" Derek stopped in mid-sentence and licked his lips, attempting to choose his words so as not to upset her more, but finding he was navigating blind. It didn't matter; she didn't let him continue anyway.

"You don't ask about them. You _don't_ talk about them." Her voice had risen angrily again.

"_Please_," Derek pressed two fists to his forehead in frustration. "I—I don't want to upset you. I don't know what to say… Emily, if you just _tell_ me what's wrong…"

"Right, if I just tell you all sorts of information about them, you can go fuck with their heads too, is that it?"

"I swear to you, I don't want to fuck with anyone's head. Not yours. Not anyone's. I don't know what you're talking about."

"I _saw_ them, Derek," she growled. "In _your _interrogation." He just stared at her, helplessly. "But you don't know anything about that," she scoffed. "I guess it was just a coincidence then, right?" Emily narrowed her eyes and moved towards him again, threateningly. "And what about me, huh? Am I just a coincidence too?" She shoved him again, though not as hard, and Derek remained standing. "Come on, Derek," she challenged, clamping down on the threatening sting that was growing behind her eyes. "Am I just the unlucky idiot who pounced first? If things had gone differently would it be JJ here falling in lo—"

Emily's eyes widened, and she backed off a full two steps and turned away, nearly dazed from the outburst and cursing herself for both her damning near-confession and for tipping her hand with JJ's name. She felt him grip her upper arm to pull her back and, clenching her fist and spinning to face him, wrenched her arm free. The threat she had wanted to utter died on her lips, however, when one look at him made it clear Derek didn't seem interested in anything at that moment besides her. His expression wasn't one of triumph or even interest in gaining more information; it was awe and relief and, though it seemed ludicrous even thinking it to herself, _adoration_.

"Emily," he murmured almost reverently, and the crinkles at the corners of his shining eyes betrayed the smile that was trying hard to escape him. He did that a lot, she realized—said her name even when it wasn't necessarily, seeming to enjoy simply letting the syllables roll around his mouth, caressing them as they slipped past his lips.

Emily made herself turn away but found her retreat hampered yet again, this time more forcefully as one of his arms hooked across her shoulders, pulling her back into his chest while his other snaked its way across her stomach and around her waist. She tensed but didn't fight, feeling him press his nose and mouth into the hair at the back of her head and inhale deeply. "Don't go," he whispered, and his breath rustled through her hair and tickled the skin behind her ear. "I don't want to hurt the people you care about, Emily. I don't want them. I want you."

He tugged with one arm and pushed with the other, forcing her to turn within the tight circle of his arms, and she let him because really, wasn't he just telling her what she had known all along but had been too freaked out to acknowledge? Finding herself pressed against him like this, however, made her ache from wanting more. She didn't fight it, leaning in closer while biting back a self-ridiculing chuckle. When JJ had suggested she start dating again, Emily was pretty sure this was _not_ what she had had in mind. She took a deep, shaky breath in, tried not to berate herself for how much she was loving the way the subtle movement of his breathing felt against her chest, and raised her eyes slowly to his. "Okay," she told him, the finality in her own voice making her heart flutter hard enough she was sure he could feel it. "You have me."

Her body arched backwards with the force of his kiss.

* * *

They had left without fanfare early the next morning and backtracked to the last turnoff so they could continue to plod their way north. It took them only another day and a half to reach I-80, and with the false security of the backwoods well-shattered for both of them, seeing the highway again actually came as a relief.

Emily was cordial but silent as they drove, spending most of her time either driving or gazing blankly out the passenger's seat window. She didn't spend any more nights alone up front, to Derek's relief, and she even let him hold her as they slept on their pallet in the back, but she remained tense and distant, and it gave Derek the disheartening feeling that it was doing a lot more to comfort him than it was for her.

As it turned out, the men in the woods were the first survivors they came across—they weren't the last. It started almost as soon as they reached the Interstate: small groups of usually between one and three men guarding gas stations or exits. Despite their previous encounter, seeing other people actually populating places that had once been so commonplace was surreal and almost tantalizing, and Morgan felt an almost instinctual need to confront them, to sniff them out and establish for himself a new mental order for things. There was no question that, had he been alone, he would have stopped already, but seeing his partner tense and shift in her seat each time they passed one of the armed groups was enough to urge him onwards.

As they traversed the national forests and drew closer to Reno, makeshift camps began appearing every few miles or so, nestled into the surrounding forest and just visible from the highway. Though every time they passed one, it would still be several minutes' drive before they would see any other evidence of human life, just knowing that he was so closely surrounded by more people than he had seen in the past week and a half combined gave Morgan a bizarre feeling of claustrophobia. Eventually, however, their fuel gauge approached empty, and he knew they would have to stop soon. He glanced at Emily as they approached a truck stop immediately off the highway. She gave him no signal that she was against stopping and only straightened and leaned forward to better survey the place, so he slowed the SUV and eased it cautiously up the short exit ramp.

There were three of them at this stop, from the looks of it, but none of them assumed an immediately offensive position as they drove up. In addition, (though he had studied human psychology long enough to know this didn't necessarily mean a thing) a part of him relaxed slightly upon noticing that one of them was a woman. Hoping Emily felt the same, he eased the SUV off the ramp and into the truck stop parking lot. Two of the other survivors, the woman and a man around his age, approached them, drawing their weapons, and for a fleeting second, Derek wondered if he had misjudged. Taking a deep breath, he placed a staying hand on Emily's shoulder and, without making any sudden movements, opened his door and began to step out. Ignoring his protective gesture, Emily mirrored his actions on her side.

"Step out where I can see you," the man called, aiming his gun at Derek while his partner kept hers trained on Emily. "I want you to unclip your guns and put them on the ground, nice and slow, hear me?" When Morgan and Prentiss both hesitated to move, the man scoffed and shook his head. "I send you out there without firepower, you're dead," he explained. "And I'm no murderer. But here? Guns come off, and you keep your hands where I can see them. That's it," he nodded in approval as they slowly complied. "You got ammo?"

"Why?" Morgan challenged.

The man just looked over his shoulder at the gas station. "Only fair, don't you think?"

Morgan eyed the weapons they carried, then went to the back seat and slowly took out a box, holding up both hands as he approached the man to show he had nothing else on him. The man snatched the box, examined it briefly, and tucked it into the back of his torn jeans. "Ed!" he called behind him, not taking his eyes off Derek. The older man, who had until now been stalking the perimeter of the truck stop, grabbed a large, orange plastic carton of gas from inside the door to the station proper, brought it over to set it down next to Emily, and went back to his guard duty.

As Emily filled their tank, it was the woman who spoke first, introducing herself as Gina. She was in her late 20s, possibly early 30s, tanned, with a thick ponytail of long, black hair and the definite trace of a Spanish accent.

"Max," the man introduced himself next. "And him we call Ed." He jerked his head back toward the older man. "Although his real name could be Denzel fuckin' Washington, for all we know. He doesn't talk much."

"We haven't seen you around before," observed Gina, eyeing Emily curiously.

When she didn't seem interested in responding, Derek explained, "We came up from the south, from Ramona, through the forest. Do any of you know what happened? We didn't see anyone… for days." Morgan almost couldn't believe he was actually getting to ask the question.

Max shook his head. "No one did. People started trickling out of whatever shelters they managed to find 'bout 4 days ago. There's not many of us left, in case you haven't noticed. And we've heard every horse shit story from aliens to fuckin' North Korea, but nobody really knows a goddamn thing. Anyway, if you ask me, it don't much matter who it is when you're on one side of a wall and your loved ones are on the other. These people, they set up camp around here because no one can get into Reno. Lots of us got family still inside, can't move on."

"No one can get inside?" Emily spoke up, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Gina shook her head at her. "The city's fortified. And from what we've heard, it's the same with all the big cities. For days, we were fighting off attacks by those Sentries they've got."

"Those… things? With the light?" Morgan cut in.

She nodded. "We lost a lot of people. But they come out here less now—they're all guarding the city. No one can get in or out… We still try, though."

Max nodded grimly in agreement, then asked them, "You guys from here too?"

Derek and Emily exchanged a look, both wondering how much to reveal. "Iowa," Derek supplied, and he saw Emily relax marginally out of the corner of his eye. "We're trying to head back home, see if we can't meet up with our people."

Max let out a sharp hiss between his teeth. "Then you're dumber than you look. Highway'll be suicide."

Derek met his eye challengingly. "But like you said, doesn't much matter when it comes to family, does it?"

Max conceded with a shrug and eyed them for a long moment. "Well," he said at length. "You better at least find a decent-sized caravan. We'll see if we can't find you some others heading east. More people with guns, the better, I say. Meantime, we can show you two where to park for the night. You'll have some shelter in the woods, and no one should come around bothering you. You're on your own for food and water, though."

Derek turned to look regretfully down the highway in the direction of Reno. They were so close; he was itching to investigate what kind of security was keeping these people, day after day, out of the city. Evening was gathering quickly, though, and getting caught anywhere near Reno after dark would likely end up being a deadly mistake.

So they were looking at another night in limbo. After Max had given them directions to some deserted off-roads that would provide relatively safe camping, Derek found himself pacing restlessly, half-heartedly gathering firewood, but mostly feeling distracted and useless as Emily started a fire. As much as Gina and Max's words had alarmed him, the certainty now that there was still at least one city intact, albeit temporarily impenetrable, as well as some people left to populate it, filled him with renewed hope.

It had also sparked the return of an idea that had been nudging him hopefully almost since this whole ordeal had begun, but it was something he would definitely have to discuss with Emily first. He stopped to hazard a glance at his partner, busily feeding kindling onto the small flame. The set of her jaw and slight crease in her forehead hadn't changed since that night in the woods, and his chest clenched with the familiar desire to reach for her and smooth it over himself—to make her look at him instead of past him and into whatever nightmare kept haunting her.

But she hadn't been much for eye contact lately, so when he sat (farther away from her than he would have liked,) he joined her in staring blankly into the growing flames.

"I was thinking," he began softly, forcing himself to resist turning towards her, "Chicago's not so far out of our way. We get a sense of how things work here in Reno, maybe we could find our way in."

"Yeah," Emily nodded without looking at him. "We should do that."

Derek didn't know whether to be relieved or alarmed that she seemed to have no further input. He couldn't deny, however, that the idea of potentially of seeing his mother and sisters again filled him with a nearly dizzying sense of possibility.

There was one more thing he wanted to address, though, before he got too excited. "What Max was saying earlier…" he said. "Seems like he knows some decent people."

Emily just nodded and poked a piece of wood more deeply into the fire with a long stick.

"You think we could end up trusting any of them enough to travel together?"

At this, Emily let out a short, unamused snort. "Can't trust anyone in this world," she declared softly.

Before he knew what he was doing, Derek had wrapped his hand around hers. Emily looked down in annoyance at their joined hands resting atop her thigh, but Derek didn't budge.

"I trust you," he told her, decisively, and watched her expression slowly change. Her eyes widened as if she were startled, and she froze, staring into the fire for a while. She looked almost stricken, and for a brief moment Derek wondered if he had somehow said the wrong thing. Then, her features relaxed, and finally, the crease in the centre of her forehead smoothed over. "I trust _you_, Emily," he repeated at nearly a whisper, and slowly, she turned to meet his gaze.

Without the tightly-guarded veil that had been darkening her eyes, her face relaxed and open now in the flickering orange firelight as she actually looked at him for the first time in days, Derek thought she had never been so beautiful.

"Right" she finally responded, pensively, as if realizing something important for the first time. "Of course… me too."

"So that's it, then," he gazed at her longingly, desperate to keep hold of the thread of connection he seemed to have forged with her, and squeezed her fingers, still caught between his. "Just us."

"Yeah," she murmured, and he could swear the corners of her lips were slowly relaxing upwards. She squeezed his hand back nodded. "Just us."


	8. Chapter 8

They stayed for another two weeks. Both Derek and Emily had awakened the next morning with a strange yearning to hit the road again at first light, but it made sense to try to learn everything they could here in Reno before facing the unknown again on the road and in Chicago.

The people around them were no angels; there were skirmishes, even violence, almost daily—tussles over food, space, or nothing identifiable save for the progression of grief over the loss of their world. Still, they were _people_, and what united most of them was immeasurable love and loss, and the uncompromising determination to return home.

It did Emily good. Derek's heart lifted with the relief and pride he felt as he watched her quickly return to herself—by the third day, she had even recruited Gina into co-teaching a rag-tag women's firearms course—and when he held her at night, she was warm and soft and every bit as present as he was.

They made daily trips to the outskirts of Reno, venturing in closer every day. The view was terrifying. The thick, shining, black tar-like wall that surrounded the city was rough with the debris it had engulfed, and in the right light it looked almost pulsatile, like part of something living. Attempting to climb it was futile, though many continued to die every day from trying. It was guarded every couple of miles or so by Beamers at what everyone assumed was entry points, though there was nothing structural at these points to indicate any sort of doorway. Firefights broke out almost constantly when someone would become desperate enough to try to shoot their way through. They always lost.

He found her on their last evening in the still-light early April dusk, poking at something she was heating up in the fire. She looked up as he approached, smiling distractedly before turning her attention back to the single can of heating soup.

"Hey, Sweetness," he greeted, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her middle. He didn't have to see her face to know what it would look like in response: brow furrowed, one eyebrow raised incredulously.

"Hey, _Muffin_," she threw back at him, and Derek chuckled lowly into the curve of her neck. "How'd it go?"

Emily felt him shrug behind her. "Same old. What's for dinner?" He planted a quick peck on her cheek and came to sit beside her.

"Cream of mushroom," she announced, picking it carefully out of the fire and handing him a spoon. "Don't like, don't eat."

"Only one?"

Emily grimaced slightly. "Not hungry."

Instead, she cuddled closer to him and lay her head on his shoulder as he ate, and Derek smiled. It was funny—he really never would have profiled her this way, especially given her upbringing. Slowly, though, he was discovering how much she seemed to enjoy physical affection. She even seemed shyly needy of it at times and made increasingly frequent small advances: fingers softly probing his waiting to be held, a lean into him while he was distracted by something else… It was only when they were alone, however, and always seemed tentative, as if she weren't quite certain what his reaction would be. Derek tried to never leave her any room for doubt.

She had been silent throughout his quick dinner, and once Derek had put the can aside, he spun to the side to face her, straddling the fallen tree trunk they used as a bench. "Okay, Princess," he said as he pulled her between his legs, "What is it?"

Emily looked innocent. "What's what?"

"Don't give me that. What's bothering you?" He leaned his forehead against hers.

Emily sighed and thought for a moment. "We gotta leave sometime, Derek," she murmured. "How the hell are we going to get into Chicago?"

Derek just smiled and kissed her, hard and fast, on the lips. "I've got a plan for that."

"Oh you do, do you?" She pulled back to study him, an affectionate smile gracing her features. "You, Derek Morgan, have a plan for just about everything, don't you?"

"Mm hmm," he murmured, pulling her closer and nipping at her earlobe. "I have a fairly detailed one in place for tonight, in fact."

Emily snorted. "Yeah, I bet you do."

"My plan," he continued softly, "involves taking you into the back of that Suburban," (he kissed the angle of her jaw,) "taking off all your clothes," (he kissed the side of her neck,) "and making you scream."

"You know," she laughed, her voice coming out slightly breathless as he sucked at her collarbone, "I think I'm liking this plan."

He nudged her eagerly off their bench. By the time they made it over to the Suburban, Derek's shirt had been forgotten somewhere on the forest floor, and he and Emily had both become decidedly less coordinated.

"Damn it," she swore into his kiss as she fumbled unsuccessfully yet again with the hatchback. With one hand busy freeing her of her pants, he reached over blindly to help her pull it open, and they practically tumbled inside in a tangle of limbs and half-discarded clothing. Derek broke away momentarily to pull it closed behind them, then turned back to pull her pants the rest of the way off and began pushing her shirt impatiently up her body and over her head.

She arched her back slightly to assist him as he snaked one hand underneath her and started fiddling with the clasp of her bra. Emily could feel him getting more impatient as it refused to give and had to roll her eyes. "Just use two hands; it'll only take a second," she panted.

"I got it," he assured her hastily and recaptured her mouth, swallowing her involuntary moan of pleasure. After another minute, though, she pulled away again, huffing impatiently. "Seriously, what is it with you and this one-handed thing? You're going to—"

Derek gave up and pulled. Emily couldn't help but cringe at the sound of tearing satin. "Augh, _seriously?_"

"Shhhh," Derek shushed her, distracted. He pulled the torn garment off her and gripped either side of her waist more tightly, eyeing the newly-exposed flesh hungrily.

Emily gasped softly as the heat of his mouth surrounded one nipple but quickly gathered her wits and scowled up at the roof of the Suburban as Derek brought one hand up slowly, possessively, over her ribs to gently massage her other breast.

"Morgan, that was the only bra I had left, and I don't see us scheduling in a trip to Victoria's Secret anytime soon."

"Emily," he practically growled, reluctantly releasing her breast and instead punctuating his words with hot kisses and nips around the soft flesh, "If you need to keep talking about Victoria's Secret, that's fine." He bit down, hard, then lavished the red mark with a wet kiss before moving on to the other breast. "But don't call me Morgan when I have my hand down your panties." He propped himself up on one elbow so he could look straight into her eyes.

"You don't—ohh," The way she stared up at him, vulnerable, eyes wide and slightly glassy with pleasure, sent a hot surge of animalistic pride through his chest, and the growing tightness beneath the fabric of his jeans became nearly unbearable. He lowered himself so his face was inches from hers, never breaking eye contact. Emily's lips parted.

"…Okay?" he plunged his fingers more deeply into her and curled them forward. Her eyelids fluttered, but she remained focused on him, nodding silently, then adding on a breathy sigh, "okay." Derek smirked, repeating the action with his fingers and liking the way her whole body rocked upwards in response to the pressure.

Suddenly, though, his balance was thrown off as Emily surprised him by forcing his weight towards his supporting side, rolling them so she was on top and straddling him. She ground once, decisively, against his hand and leaned forward with an almost predatory smile. "Asshole." She ground against him once more, and he could feel the soft puff of her hot breath against his jaw.

Morgan groaned. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but…"

"You owe me new lingerie."

Derek was quickly losing the ability to think clearly as she grabbed his wrist, removing his fingers from her and shimmying down his body to undo his fly and coax his pants down over his hips. And he was definitely not going to refuse her anything by the time she had divested him of his boxers, her lips coming to rest on his hard length before her tongue darted out and started teasing him.

"There's—_Jesus, _Emily—There's bound to be another Wal-Mart in one of these towns." She had just taken him into her mouth when she froze at his words. He only had a second to mourn the loss of her wet lips and tongue before he found his entire length pressed against a different heat, their hips perfectly aligned as Emily again supported herself with a hand on either side of his head. Her eyes were narrowed at him incredulously.

"_Wal-Mart?_" she scoffed. "Do you have any idea how much I paid for that thing?"

Derek had wasted no time gripping her ass and forcing her pelvis to grind hotly against his. She collapsed on top of him, and the feel of her breasts against him had him wanting to bury himself in her to the hilt and never leave. He knew he wouldn't last much longer.

"Baby," he muttered, lifting his head to suck at the sensitive skin of her neck. "I swear to you, it was worth every penny." He flipped them again, and though Emily still smirked up at him, determined to have the last word, her voice was becoming more breathless, and Derek could tell she was as ready as he was.

"You bet your ass it was. Until you decided to—_God._" It was Derek's turn to smirk, taking her in as her eyes lost focus and he settled into a rhythm, loving how her body almost immediately relaxed, practically melting into it. "Oh, God. Oh, fuck, yes. Yes… _Derek!"_

* * *

They left at dawn the next morning without a word to anyone. It stung a bit, but they had been through enough to know that their world wasn't what it used to be. Despite the fact that they had met some good people outside of Reno, Morgan and Prentiss were painfully aware that travelling alone with a healthy stash of weaponry and ammo, they would make highly tempting targets.

30 minutes into their drive, Derek was becoming increasingly agitated by the looks she kept shooting him.

"Okay, stop it," he finally ordered, shifting a little uncomfortably in his seat.

Emily's brow furrowed. "Stop what?"

"With the eyes. Stop it."

"These are my eyes, Derek. I don't know what you'd suggest I do with them."

Derek barked out a laugh. "Oh, right. As if you don't know very well you can get just about anything you want with those eyes."

Emily huffed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Not buyin' it, Princess."

She seemed to sulk for a while, then decided it wasn't enough. "You _broke_ my only bra, Derek. I'm allowed to be a little pissed off at you."

To her chagrin, her admission did not have the desired effect at all. Derek's face lit up, and he took one hand off the steering wheel to reach over eagerly and cup her breast, bare underneath the sweatshirt she wore. "Well, so I did," he announced, his tone positively dripping with self-satisfaction.

"It's not funny," Emily insisted. "If we have to run anytime soon, you are going to owe me _big_."

Derek just laughed. "Hey, I didn't know it was your only one; I though you'd have a good supply of that kind of stuff. Besides," he gave her a playful squeeze through her top. "Lucky for you, I'm more than happy to help out in that department."

She shoved his hand away. "Oh, excuse me for not packing appropriately for the _Apocalypse_," she bit out sarcastically, but Derek simply caught her hand, brought it to his lips for a quick peck, and continued to beam at her. It didn't take long for the sides of Emily's mouth to start tugging upwards into a smile. She looked over at him, blinking sweetly a couple times. "Anything I want, huh?"

"Don't even think about it, Prentiss," he warned playfully.

Emily grinned at him and settled back in her seat, keeping their fingers intertwined between them for a few seconds longer. "So you never told me about your plan to get us into Chicago."

Derek blew air between his lips. "Right. You ever heard of Chicago's underground freight tunnels?"

She thought for a moment, brow furrowed. "Didn't they flood in the early nineties? Morgan, those are probably all sealed off by now."

"Some of them are; most of them are still open down there, if you can find a way to get in. And they extend nearly to the water."

"That seems like a pretty big _if_," Emily reflected, looking skeptical. "More likely a bunch of big _ifs_."

"It's all I've got, though, Emily," he replied almost desperately. "And I'm thinking—I'm _hoping _if I've thought of it, other people have too. They're not too well-known, but if you grew up in Chicago, you've most likely heard stories… I just feel like if I don't try, I'll never—"

"Hey," she interjected softly, cutting him off and reaching over to squeeze his upper arm. "Of course we have to try. And if that doesn't work, we'll try something else."

Not trusting words to adequately express what that meant to him, Derek simply reached up to cover her hand, bringing it down once more between them and giving it a grateful squeeze.

Emily smiled at him. "Let's go see your mom."

They continued to keep to side roads, but the journey this time was much easier now that the countryside seemed relatively clear of Beamers, and it only took them three days to reach the suburbs of Chicago. As with Reno, the closer they drew, the more stragglers they encountered, but Derek drove them straight through around the less populated South end, right up to Lake Michigan. As soon as the expected black Wall was within sight, he killed the engine. "We're going to be passing close," he explained, almost apologetically. "We'll attract attention driving, and we might lose road access anyway." Emily simply nodded and got out to pack their essentials.

It was almost nightfall by the time they made it to the lakefront trail bordering Grant Park. Here, they were less than half a mile from the Wall, and the sight was horrifyingly surreal, like some hulking, fantastical beast hunched protectively over its prey.

The lakefront was surprisingly deserted, though they supposed they really couldn't blame people for not wanting to get caught this close after dark. The upside of the bare, deserted lakefront, though, was that it didn't appear to be very heavily guarded.

They spent nearly four hours searching for a deserted tunnel or boarded up elevator shaft that might indicate an entry point to the long-abandoned freight tunnels. Finally, Emily collapsed onto the side of the huge, waterless fountain in the centre of the park to rest, slumping exhaustedly forward and looking at him with heavy, drained eyes. She gave him a small smile as he approached which Derek had no doubt was meant to be encouraging, but he could see how pale she was, and in her exhaustion she wasn't quite able to hide the doubt in her expression.

"We'll try tomorrow," she told him as he sat next to her. "It's just hard in the dark."

Derek had just taken a breath to respond when an urgent whisper had them both leaping to their feet and drawing their guns, fully alert and searching for the source of the noise.

"_Hey,_" it came again. Both guns whipped towards the shadowed figure of a man approaching them slowly from about 20 yards away. Derek drew himself up to his full height and moved so that his body was directly between Emily and the stranger.

The man continued to approach, slowly and warily, empty hands held out in front of him. "I'm a friend," he said, as loudly as he dared. "If you want into the city, I can help you. But I'm not staying for long."

"How?" Derek demanded, refusing to lower his gun.

The man shot a cautious glance behind him. "The tunnels," he said. "You must already know, or you wouldn't be poking around here in the dark."

With one hand still gripping her gun, Emily retrieved a flashlight and shone it directly at him, first his face, then down his body searching for any weapons. The man squinted in the harsh light. "Look, my name is Malik," he explained. "I'm an engineer. I can get you into the tunnels, but… I need to be back before sunrise. If you want to come, come now."

With a glance towards Derek, Emily slowly lowered her weapon. Derek did the same a few seconds later, but both continued to eye the newcomer warily.

"Okay," Emily challenged, nodding for him to go ahead of them. "Show us." She allowed Derek to lock his fingers protectively through hers, then followed Malik back towards the waterfront.

As they reached the road that cut between them and the lake, Malik slowed to a stop and crouched down to lift the cover of a manhole. With a glance back at them to see that they were still following, he lowered himself to a seated position at its edge. "Careful," he warned. "The ladder is narrow and slippery. Last one down, draw the cover back to where it was." And with that, he disappeared into the ground.

Emily was the last one in. As she dropped to the bottom, she let out a gasp of disgust and brought her hand up quickly to cover her mouth and nose. Derek held out a hand to steady her. "You okay?" He asked, alarmed.

"Yeah, just… smells down here."

When all three had illuminated their flashlights, Derek nodded once again for Malik to lead the way, not wanting to get caught with the stranger at their backs. After a few minutes, their guide started talking.

"I remember learning about the freight tunnels in school," he began softly. "It became a bit of a hobby of mine. I once managed a tour after years of being turned away. Since the beginning of all this… this occupation, however you call it, I've been making trips in and out, at least once a day. Sometimes there's no one around; sometimes there is. Like tonight."

Emily felt herself relax slightly as she realized how much they would owe this man if he was actually able to bring them safely inside. "Why do it?" She asked him. "Why risk it?"

Malik seemed to think about this for a while. "If that Wall was the only thing keeping me from my children," he responded finally, "I think I would die trying to scale it. This seems… a better option."

They continued along the sewers for another 30 minutes or so until Malik stopped and opened a grate for them to crawl through. He then led them across a cement freight area to a pair of ancient double elevator doors. "We're in the sub-basement of Central Station," he explained calmly. "But still too close to the Wall. We enter the tunnels here, then we'll follow them to City Hall." He pried the doors open and prepared to enter the gaping shaft. "I've built steps here," he told them, "but they're crude, so only one at a time."

The tunnels were pitch dark, cold, and wet. They followed them in silence for over three hours until finally, they arrived at some industrial steel steps leading to a metal door. On the other side, they found themselves in yet another sub-basement, then took four flights of stairs up to emerge into the once-gleaming granite elegance of the Chicago City Hall lobby.

The ceiling was high and vaulted; the consecutive towering archways seemed to recede into a dizzying and endless tunnel. They had walked all evening, then nearly all night, and soon they would step out, exhausted, into the stillness of pre-dawn. Emily swayed. Derek's hand shot out again to steady her, and he kept it resting gently on her back even after she waved him off.

As they reached the paneled front doors, Malik stopped and turned to them. "Traveling at night is reasonable," he told them. "The Machines show up in darkness before you do. If you see one… do not attract its attention." With that, he pulled open one heavy door and led them out into downtown Chicago.

The street was still littered with remnants of an interrupted weekday that may as well have been eons ago. Cars and buildings showed more damage here than they had in Ramona, and the uneven tops of unlit skyscrapers cut jagged black shadows against the inky sky like pleading prisoners reaching towards the outside.

The cool, nighttime breeze against her cheek wasn't enough to call her back from the new wave of dizziness that was quickly overtaking her. Emily collapsed to her knees and vomited onto the cold, unforgiving sidewalk.

Greenish-grey splotches clouded out her vision, but she soon felt Derek's hand supporting her forehead and his body steady beside her and willing to take her weight, and she couldn't have been more grateful. When her stomach stopped heaving, what she wanted to do more than anything was to curl up right there on the concrete and fall asleep with her head in his lap. Instead, she pushed herself into a half-seated position, supporting herself with shaky hands on his knees and letting his grip on her shoulders steady her upper body. Her breathing evened out eventually, but her heart didn't show any signs of slowing. Finally, Emily raised wide, terrified eyes to his and waited for his expression to change from concern to realization.

Because it wasn't indigestion that was making her empty her stomach of a non-existent dinner at four in the morning in the middle of the street. When Derek's eyes flashed and his jaw tightened and he silently gathered her closer, taking her full weight onto his side, Emily knew that he understood. She collapsed against him gratefully and waited for the trembling to subside.

"I have to go," Malik's almost apologetic statement startled Derek from his racing thoughts. "I have my family to take care of." The man was considering them with a strange mix of resignation, sympathy, and hope colouring his expression. He nodded at Derek as the two men's eyes met. "As you do. Good luck, my friend."

He turned and disappeared down the shadowed street.

* * *

"Emily?"

_No. _

"Emily… Emily!"

_No, she wasn't ready to leave yet. _

She felt herself being moved. "Open your eyes, Bella."

_Not yet… not yet._

Emily opened her eyes.

"There you are." The voice was smiling. Emily blinked.

"Dave?"

"Agent Prentiss." It was Hotchner's voice that responded this time, and Emily shot up, arms and legs scrambling to arrange themselves in a somewhat more dignified position.

"_Sir_," was the first thing that flew from her mouth. "What—I…"

"Are you hurt?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Prentiss, is the Subject dangerous?"

She started to shake her head, but Rossi cut in. "You were worried about something."

"But I'm not anymore," she replied firmly.

"You were out for quite a while, Emily." JJ now. Emily hadn't realized she was there as well.

Looking from her friend's worried face to her boss, Emily silently weighed her options. Tell Hotchner the truth and she may as well walk up to him in a straightjacket. Lie, and she would be humbling herself before him in a way that sent a shiver of distaste up her back—and he might still lose respect and confidence in her if she didn't choose her words perfectly. Turning towards him, Emily made the only choice she could possibly make.

"Sir," she began slowly. "What JJ told you… maybe her concern isn't entirely baseless. As you know, I've—" she swallowed thickly—"I've had my mind elsewhere this year, and maybe I've thrown myself a little too fully into my cases to make up for it."

Hotchner was nodding, and Emily hastened to continue before he got the wrong idea of where she was headed. "The work is good for me, though," she insisted. "Believe me, Sir, there is no way I want a repeat of this. I lost my head and was running on fumes; I must have blacked out. It won't happen again." Her supervisor looked doubtful, so she pressed on. "Let me finish this one file, then I promise I'll take a few days. I'll take it easy; I'll stick to my desk… just please don't make me leave this unfinished."

He considered a moment. "Can you stand?" He inquired, and Emily hastened to her feet. Hotchner looked over her appraisingly. "Take the rest of the afternoon," he ordered finally. "But I'll see you back in the morning."

When the door clicked shut behind him, Emily nearly sank with relief. She knew what she had to do, and another day was all she would need. Before she could follow him, though, a hand on her arm stayed her. At JJ's look, she turned to face her friend and heard Rossi chuckle behind her. "I can tell when I'm not wanted," he muttered good-naturedly. "I'll leave you ladies to it."

Both women watched him leave, then JJ's voice called Emily's attention back to her. "I think this is a bad idea."

Emily narrowed her eyes. "Oh, do you? What, you gonna run and tell the boss on me?" She paused for a moment then deflated a little. "Sorry," she muttered.

"We've been through this," JJ replied, seeming to ignore her jab. "Talk to me, Em. What the hell really happened? We find you here unconscious on the floor and you want us to just believe it was because you skipped breakfast?" Emily looked away stubbornly. "Emily, please," JJ's voice softened. "Is it the dreams? Have you been having them again?" When she didn't answer, JJ grabbed her hand and squeezed, waiting.

Emily knew she should keep this to herself. No one would understand. She would be kicked off the case and forced into early retirement. People would look at her pityingly and whisper behind her back. But JJ was her friend, and that friendship _meant _something, and damn if she wasn't all but desperate for something in this world to mean something.

She gave a short nod. "Only, I don't think they're dreams, JJ."

She could hear the sharp intake of breath. "What—" JJ stammered as if she were afraid to hear the answer. "What are you talking about?"

Emily slowly lifted her eyes to meet JJ's. Forcing her gaze to remain steady, she whispered, "I think they're memories."


	9. Chapter 9

Hours later, Emily would hear the pounding at the door and realize she had made a terrible mistake.

For now, lying fully awake in bed, she pulled the covers more tightly around her to contain the shiver of almost childish impatience that ran through her. Emily curled her body more tightly around the knot of restless anticipation in the centre of her chest—the one that swelled every so often and threatened to escape her—and smiled. They had told her that memory lapses were a normal finding in the illness that had consumed her in the wake of losing her daughter. And really, in the presence of such an all-encompassing void, who knew where one loss ended and the other began? She had _known_, though, that there had been more that she was missing. The relief of having that knowledge validated, and of finding one of those pieces of herself that she had supposed was lost forever, soothed her into an unusually easy and blissful acceptance of that which remained inexplicable. Soon she and Derek would be together, and he would explain everything.

Emily had wondered only briefly at the strange complacency that had come over her after having admitted aloud to JJ her seemingly impossible conclusion about the Subject. Then, the tight, corded thing had burst forth, throbbing, into her chest. Emily had turned quickly away so that her friend wouldn't notice the hitch in her breath or the smile that came, unbidden, to her lips at the sudden and unexpectedly dramatic release.

When prodded, the Doctor had told her exactly what she wanted to hear. The rehabilitation process could be a long one, depending on the case, but at the end of it all she would have what she wanted. The knot inside her swelled, pressing impatiently against the prison of her ribs, and Emily didn't want to wait any longer. All that remained for her to get the ball rolling was to finish off a convincing enough report and set of recommendations, and biding her time under the covers like a kid waiting for Santa Claus wasn't going to help get it done any more quickly. She threw back the covers and, ignoring the headache that had been lacing its way beneath her skull, headed for the bathroom. It was just after midnight when a few precocious raindrops slipped from the heavy cloud cover. It was at the same moment that, stepping outside, a distracted Emily Prentiss thought absently: _funny, haven't had much rain in a while_, then locked her door behind her and headed the short distance to Bureau Headquarters.

* * *

By 5:00 am, her report was finished, saved, and sitting in a neatly-labeled envelope in Hotchner's inbox. Inside Interrogation Room 1, Derek lay as still and unchanging as always, and anxiety had caused Emily to begin unconsciously shredding her nails. She thought of the Subject, silent and haunted in his grey stone cell, of the Derek in her visions, gentle and patient and sorrowfully beautiful, and of the partner and lover in what she now called her memories. She wondered frettingly which of the three, if any, she would meet when the man in front of her finally opened his eyes to a new life with the Bureau. Would he recognize her? If so, would he even like what he saw in person?

The knot in her chest, silent since she had entered the room, galloped a little at the thought, and Emily could no longer bear the distance between them. She reached out to caress one dark, sculpted cheekbone, letting her thumb trail gently over the stubble just beneath it, and closed her eyes to relish its roughness against her skin.

When she opened them again, it was to a faint flickering light between grey shadows and an inscrutable voice counting—always counting.

_Five: Humanity is dust within humility's splendour. _

The Subject sat in a naked huddle in the corner, and for a fleeting moment Emily wondered why the first word that jumped into her mind was _empty_. She fought against the throbbing in her chest and the chilling sense of familiarity that crept over her until her surroundings changed from grey to green (though, she was startled to notice, the green had faded.)

Derek was seated, still and huddled against a solitary tree. For a single, heart-stopping moment, Emily was certain that he, too, was empty… and worse, that it was all her fault. She had become greedy, she thought, horrified—the void in her that wanted so desperately to be filled by him had pulled too insistently, and now there was nothing left in him to pull.

Then, he lifted his head and smiled, beckoning her to join him, and the sickening thought dissolved as fully as the grey cell had. The knot in her chest loosened and uncoiled as Emily sank down gratefully beside him and allowed him to pull her closer into the warmth of his side, but it did not escape her notice that he had not risen to greet her. She shifted so that her lips and the tip of her nose brushed the side of his neck, breathed in deeply just for the scent of him, and thought that she had never enjoyed a moment so intimate. Then, reluctantly, she lifted her head to face him and took his face between her hands.

"You're not okay," she murmured, noting the beads of sweat forming along his hairline and the slightly ashen tinting around his lips and eyes. Derek just smiled back at her concerned face, so close to his own.

"I will be, though," he assured her. "This won't last forever."

At this, a placid smile came to her lips despite herself, and Emily stopped her worried study of him in order to meet his eyes.

"No," she affirmed. "It won't. Come with me, Derek. I know what to do. The Bureau will take you in if you let them. Whatever it was that was keeping you out there… you'll have to let it go. But if you do, we can be together."

She stopped, a little breathless, a little embarrassed at the pleading tone she had taken on, and suddenly a little afraid of what his answer might be.

It was the hot press of his lips against hers.

"We _will_ be together, Emily Prentiss." He sounded almost apologetic. "But there's one more thing I have to show you first."

He kissed her again, and the faded green field with its lonely tree disappeared.

* * *

If Fran Morgan had been the crying type, she would have burst into hot tears upon seeing her only son standing on her back porch in the middle of the night as if the world hadn't just ended a month earlier.

As it stood, Frances Eleanor Morgan hadn't shed a tear since that day nearly thirty years ago when she found her boy, who deserved to cry enough for all of them combined, waiting dry-eyed and fatherless for her in a strange police Captain's office. So when she opened the door fearing the worst and found him (leaner, more sinewy, perhaps, but unmistakably alive) with a single word on his lips ("Mama," he breathed,) her breath hitched and her hand flew to her mouth, but the tears did not come.

She rushed to him, throwing her arms around him and cradling his head to her breast. "Derek," she thought was what she was saying. "Oh my baby, my baby."

It was only a slight movement: an unsteady shift of weight out of the corner of her eye that caught her attention. Derek wasn't alone, and as she pulled back from her son, reluctant to break contact, she realized he had been gripping his friend's hand the entire time.

His friend from work—the pretty one, whom she had met before in another life and who now looked decidedly worse for wear. The woman was standing slightly behind Derek, eyes lowered respectfully to the ground for the reunion, but Fran could tell now that it wasn't awkwardness that was causing the woman to sway like that.

"Mama, you remember Emily?" Derek asked as she ushered them in. Something was making his tone clipped and terse.

The woman gave her a weak smile. "Mrs. Morgan. It's so good to see you." Her eyes were dark and haunted, though, and she was fighting to keep her posture upright.

"Fran, please," she insisted as she guided them to the living room, then returned a few minutes later with two cups of cold water and a platter of simple, dry snack food. "No electricity for another few hours," she explained regretfully. "Or I would offer you some tea."

Fran watched as Emily sipped the water, gingerly at first, then greedily. Derek attacked the modest spread with gusto but slowed down almost guiltily when he realized his friend wasn't touching it.

"Mama," he started, seeming to choose his words carefully. We walked a long way, and Em was driving before that. I'll show her where to settle in and come talk to you some more, okay?"

Fran nodded, keeping deliberately mum regarding sleeping arrangements and trusting her son to sort them out for himself (though the way he was looking at the other woman, she probably needn't have even wondered.) Emily, halfway gone already, shot Fran a grateful smile and allowed Derek to lead her slowly up the stairs. His hand, steady, remained at the small of her back while hers, a little shaky, leaned heavily on the railing. Derek's head bowed ever so slightly towards hers as if awaiting further instruction, and every once in a while his fingers would tighten and rumple the fabric of her shirt over the curve of her back.

If Fran Morgan were the crying type, her eyes might have misted a little as she watched because her baby boy wasn't just alive and at home—he was also in love.

* * *

When Emily awoke, the first thing she felt was the soft give of the mattress beneath her and the absence of the dewy chill she had become so accustomed to in the morning. The second thing she felt, as her eyes snapped open and flew about her, was the delayed jolt of consciousness and that moment of dread ambiguity that comes from chasing the tail end of some nightmare. Something had woken her. Once her senses caught up with her, Emily savoured a momentary interlude with the unfamiliar softness and warmth surrounding her before a second jolt had her tumbling out of the covers and stumbling towards the bathroom.

She emerged, still bleary-eyed, to find Derek sitting on the foot of the bed (which she was certain had been empty when she awoke,) elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together idly. She frowned grumpily as she plopped down beside him, far enough away to avoid physical contact. "How long've you been sitting there?" Her throat was sore and her voice gravelly.

"I came in to wake you," he explained evenly. "Guess you heard the door open 'cause you bolted for the bathroom before I even opened my mouth."

"Mmh," Emily acknowledged, then enjoyed not saying anything for a while. There was a sort of sanctity to silence in the morning, she thought, a little peevishly. It was nice when no one came and forced you to break it for a while. As her stomach stopped churning, however, her thoughts became more charitable. "Morning," she conceded eventually, and gave him and almost contrite half-smile.

"_Afternoon_," he teased back. "You sleep okay?"

Emily nodded, and silence fell again until Derek took a fortifying breath. "Should we talk about this?"

"Is there anything to talk about?" She replied, not unkindly. "I'm—this is happening… I don't think we're in a position to have much say in the matter."

Derek sighed but kept his tone patient and even. "I didn't say _make a decision_, Em. I said _talk about it_."

Emily thought for a long time, the suggestion striking her as oddly amusing. She was suddenly reminded of a cartoon she once saw where a man is doggedly pressing the flight attendant call button while the plane is going down in flames around him. She shrugged helplessly and caught Derek's eye. "I'm fucking terrified."

His mouth twitched. "Yeah," he agreed.

After a few moments' silence, Emily didn't want to absorb it anymore. "We don't even know if it's anything." She stood up and made for the bedroom door. "Maybe we should wait for proof before freaking out."

Derek seemed taken aback for a moment but recovered quickly. He stood to follow her, flashing her an almost convincingly carefree smirk. "Face it already, Emily Prentiss, I knocked you up."

Emily didn't bother turning to respond. "Screw you."

"That's—"

"_Don't _say it."

"Hey." He caught her wrist just as she reached the doorway, and the shift in his tone had her turning to face him curiously. "I'm going out to see my sisters today," he began, rubbing soft circles on her wrist with the pad of his thumb. "And I want you to stay here with my ma."

Emily opened her mouth instinctively to argue, then closed it again upon realizing she couldn't think of a single reason to. Derek needed time with his sisters, goodness knew they could benefit from some time apart from each other after the past month, and, if she were honest with herself, she was exhausted from running. She thought of that single, blissful moment before her stomach had flipped over when all she had felt was warm and comfortable and _safe_ and nodded her assent. She watched Derek's body relax and his lips curl into a grateful, relieved smile. Just as she turned towards the door again, though, another, more insistent tug on her wrist had her whirling back and into a searing kiss. No sooner did she have time to respond than Derek released her lips and practically crushed her into his chest, one arm encircling her waist, the opposite hand splayed between her shoulder blades, and his lips brushing the crest of her ear. Emily's heart panged a little (from what—fear, grief, comfort, something else—she didn't know,) and she allowed her own hands to find their delayed way up his muscled back.

He released her a few moments later and, saying nothing, led her downstairs to the kitchen where Fran was pouring something into a mug.

"I was getting worried," she said, smiling and giving Emily a wink. "How did you sleep, Dear?"

"Wonderfully. I'm so sorry, Mrs—Fran. I can't believe I slept so late."

"You obviously needed it," the older woman said kindly. "I just wish this one would do the same." She jerked her head towards her son while setting a bowl and a mug in front of Emily. Cream of wheat, no milk, and some sort of weak-looking tea. Emily was surprised to find that she was starving.

"And before this goes any further," Derek cut in, rolling his eyes, "I'm going now, Ma. Emily's gonna stay and keep you company." He gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, met Emily's eyes and, after a soft brush of his fingers against hers, exited the back door.

Emily didn't realize she had been staring after him until Fran's voice called her back.

"Not many fresh foods around these days," she explained with an apologetic smile.

Emily shook her head and returned her attention to the breakfast the woman had put in front of her. "No," she said quickly, shaking her head. "It's perfect, Fran, thank you, really." While she ate, though, her eyes wandered back to the door. She heard a soft laugh.

Fran's eyes danced with mirth, sympathy, and what Emily was surprised to recognize as affection. "I can't believe it's me of all people saying this," she said warmly, "but he'll be _fine_. My son can take care of himself." She sighed and spoke as a woman resigned to long experience. "And even if he couldn't, well—there'd be no convincing him otherwise, would there?"

Appropriately chastened, Emily couldn't help but laugh, shaking her head in agreement. Still, in spite of herself, the smile quickly faded, and she locked eyes with Fran. "Tell me what I should be worried about here."

Fran, too, sobered. She took a breath, chewing her lip a little as if contemplating where to start. "Those big steel tubs you see walking around? We're pretty sure they're just the beat cops. They have a governing body, but no one's actually seen who or what they are and come back right-minded enough to tell about it. They communicate with us, but only through people who've joined them. Figured it was better on the winning side, I guess. Sarah swears up and down half those people didn't go willingly, but she's got all sorts of ideas. I just try to lay low and thank whatever's out there needing to be thanked that I've still got my babies—" she swallowed thickly and beamed at Emily "—all three of them now."

Emily gave her a genuine smile in return and waited while Fran seemed to hesitate before continuing.

"We all had to be registered," she finally admitted, then faltered slightly. "Well, not all of us. Desi and I… most people we know. Not Sarah. The Resistance has been active almost right from the beginning, and most members refuse registration. They live underground, trying to avoid the beat cops and figure out a way to reverse whatever's happening here." She smiled, an odd combination of anguish and fierce pride crossing her features. "It's because of Sarah that I was able to give Derek directions for how to get around safely. It'll be important that you two aren't detected while you're here, or you'll be registered on the spot. You won't be able to get out of the city, and I have a feeling that's what you'll be wanting eventually."

Surprised by the candor, Emily met Fran's eyes but did not respond. She was even more surprised by the sudden tentativeness in the other woman's voice. "Though," she offered, "if that _wasn't _what you wanted, it isn't so bad here as I've heard it is other places. There's a lot of strange rules and decrees that don't seem to make much sense, but they seem to leave you alone as long as you're registered and they don't take an interest in you. Life isn't easy, but it's been more or less predictable since things have settled down a bit… It wouldn't be the _worst _place to raise a child."

At this, Emily's eyes snapped back to hers. Inexplicably shaken, she felt her cheeks burning as she floundered for a response. "I—Did…?"

"Oh, Sweetie," Fran reached over and gently stilled one fidgeting hand with her own. "You think I couldn't tell from the moment you showed up on my doorstep?"

It was enough for the lump in Emily's throat to nearly choke her. Her eyes welled up, and she balled her fists, willing her hands to stop trembling and cursing herself. She, Emily Prentiss, was _not _about to break down in front of one of the strongest women she had ever met.

"What am I supposed to do?" Her voice came out a strangled whisper.

"What do you do? Anything and everything you need to. You're a mother, Emily. You might not feel like one yet, but when the time comes when you need to protect that life that's inside you, I promise you, you will."

Emily took a few wavering breaths and tried to steady her voice. "I don't know how much Derek told you. It was—" she shook her head, trying to find the right word—"an extermination. There aren't many people left on the outside, and those that _are_…" She trailed off, her eyes pleading with the older woman to understand.

A sad, faraway look passed Fran's face for a few moments. "The world could be a cruel place for innocents even before it ended," she said simply, and for a very brief moment the truth of it made Emily want to cry again: for herself or for the woman in front of her, she wasn't sure.

"We haven't spend much time together," Fran continued after a silence. "But I know my son. And it's taken me a long time to make my peace with a lot of his decisions because goodness knows they're not usually rational." She trailed off for a moment, seeming to steel herself for what she was about to say. "I'm not blind. I know Derek's experienced more horrors than even I know about. He wasn't always such a lone wolf, you know…" A wistful smile passed her lips. "But who he chooses to trust? _That_ I have never had to question. Not once. And that boy trusts you with his life _and _that of his child, Emily. I don't know if you understand how truly rare that is."

For the first time that morning, the ache in Emily's chest dissipated, and her smile was heartfelt. "I do," she answered easily because that was one of the only things left of which she was still completely certain.

Fran was quick to return her smile and leaned in again to squeeze her hand. "Good," she said. "And that's why I'm not worried about you at all."

And for some reason that was all Emily needed to hear. Her smile widened into an almost childish grin as she stood to help clear the counter. "Tell me about him?" she entreated Fran, craving the comfort of her voice as much as she was eager to hear the stories. "I want to hear about Derek. Before he was a lone wolf."

Fran laughed. "Not so lonely anymore, though," she teased.

Then, she began telling stories.

* * *

Derek returned hours later, grim-faced, to laughter coming from the living room. The sight of the two women, relaxed and looking for all the world like Hell wasn't just beyond the doorstep brought a lump to his throat, and he preferred not to dwell too long on the bittersweet tug in his chest; he had had enough of that already that day. Reuniting with his sisters had been an absolute gift, but the things Sarah had shared with him…

"Do I wanna know?" He managed to joke, leaning against the doorway to the living room. Emily stopped laughing, but her eyes still danced as they met his, and he thought: what perfection to wrap his body around hers. To curl up with his head on her breast, his arms and legs both claiming her.

Instead, he sat down next to her leaving half a couch cushion between them. If Emily noticed, she didn't seem to mind. Just as later that night after she crawled onto him in nothing but one of his old college tees, darkened a little around the shoulders from the dampness of her hair, she didn't seem to mind the way he made love to her ardently but silently and the way he seemed distracted again the moment they collapsed, breathless, next to one another.

The truth was, she herself was distracted—by the way her body felt against soft sheets after her first real shower in weeks, by the pleasant coolness of her still-damp hair and by the heat of her lover's skin. So that when she turned to him, fingers skimming lightly over his bare chest, and opened her mouth carelessly to what was on her mind, it was the honest, brutal truth.

"Love you," she breathed, and felt his body stiffen against hers. Emily's eyes widened, and her muscles tightened defensively in return, but she fought the urge to pull away. "Derek." In the silence, she could hear the rustle of the sheet as his opposite fist tangled in it.

"_Damn_ it, Emily."

"Forget it, okay?"

After what seemed like a very long time, he stood and left the room, closing the door with a soft click behind him. Emily was still awake when he finally returned, crawled into bed behind her, and gently wrapped all four of his limbs around her.


	10. Chapter 10

Just. It wasn't what he wanted for her.

Emily Prentiss was singing with his mother in his childhood kitchen, and outside if she were to take the wrong street at the wrong time some oversized toaster could determine her worth in a fraction of a second and do whatever the hell it wanted with her, and there wasn't a goddamn thing he could do about it.

And that made him weak. And _that _was not. What. He fucking. _Wanted _for her.

It was making him petty and mean, snapping over trivialities and spending most of his time alone or with Sarah and her friends.

Emily, to her credit, seemed to take it for what it was and gave him his space, though every once in a while he would catch her with her guard down while doing something totally mundane, and what flashed behind her eyes then was downright _wounded_. It shattered him every time.

It also pissed him off. Sometimes he would leave simply to rid himself of the urge to grab her and shake her until she fought back. Because surely she could see that he was being a first class fucking asshole right now, and she of all people should be able to call him on that shit.

Instead, she was singing with his mother in the kitchen, and damn it if he didn't even know the woman _could _sing. Derek's jaw tightened, and he would have hightailed it out of there right then were it not for the fact that he probably could have gone on listening to her all night even though he was fairly certain they were getting about half the lyrics wrong.

It was no secret that the two women had bonded—quickly and, it seemed, irrevocably. That, at least, had minimized the tension between them regarding his leaving nearly every night. Emily seemed content to spend as much time as she could get with Fran. Derek wondered how much Emily was thinking of her own mother and of the very different relationship she had with her. One day maybe he would ask her about it. Not today.

"Sweetie, you keep scowling like that and your face is going to stick that way."

He looked up. His mother had not been sharing Emily's silence about his recent sullenness. "Sorry, Mama." He met Emily's eyes—dark, inscrutable, almost preternaturally neutral—and felt his stomach churn. He looked away. "I'm gonna go for a walk."

It wasn't long after the kitchen door clicked satisfyingly closed behind him when he heard it open again, her footsteps growing quickly louder as she approached him. He didn't turn around. "Go home, Emily."

"The hell I will."

"Oh, _now_ you wanna do this?" He demanded, rounding on her. He glanced warily around them. "Go _home_. Stay inside. I'll talk to you later."

Emily shifted, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw. Her face remained stony, and for a moment Derek's mind flashed to cool, white marble—beautiful. Hard. Immutable. "No," she said simply. "I'm not fighting with you in your mother's house."

But she wasn't made of marble. She was soft flesh and warm blood that could be spilled, and therein lay the problem.

"Do you not know what could happen to you if one of those pieces of scrap metal notices you out here?" He hissed. "Or do you just not fucking care?" He stole a momentary, meaningful glance at her abdomen.

He could feel rather than see her body recoil, and the wave of pain it sent through him was a welcome release. _This _was what he deserved.

It was also unbearable. Some perverse part of him wanted to press on—to probe the wound further just to see how much he could take. Instead, he turned away from her.

"You are way out of line." Emily grabbed at his upper arm, but he shook her off. "You have been _trying _to piss me off for days, and you're damn well near succeeding." Emily raised her voice, hurrying to pass him and forcing herself directly into his path. "So what is it, huh? What's got you feeling so fucking sorry for yourself that you can't spend ten consecutive minutes with your own mother? That you can't even look at me? _LOOK_ at me!" She brought her hands to his chest to stop his momentum, but he swatted them aside angrily. Undeterred, she pushed back more forcefully against him. "What the hell is your problem?"

"What's my problem?" He spat, this time invading her personal space rather than continue to try to walk away from her. "My problem is that in case you haven't noticed, Prentiss, we're at _war_. And we're losing. We have no weapons, no army, and we don't know a goddamn thing about what it is we're fighting. This is _our _place, and we're the ones skulking along back alleys in broad daylight like rats. One wrong move, and we never see each other again; do you get that? So tell me. How the _fuck _do I get you all the way to DC when I can't even get you to _stay. In the fucking. HOUSE_?"

His voice had risen with every word until he was almost yelling at her, and what clouded her expression then was unmistakable. She was disgusted with him. Good.

"You know what?" The chill in her voice at once thrilled and terrified him. Emily, his statue. "You don't have to _get_ me anywhere. Fuck you." She pushed past him without a second look, taking long, confident strides back towards his mother's house. After only a brief pause, Derek resumed stalking resolutely in the opposite direction.

It was the wholly unexpected but distinctive hitch in her voice as she called him back that made him halt in his tracks.

"Derek."

He tensed, hesitating, and when he finally turned he did so reluctantly. Emily's stance had changed, drained of all aggression and defensiveness. Her eyes were wide with realization and something akin to heartbreak, her face void of its implacable coolness. The marble had cracked.

"You don't have to get me anywhere."

It was a long time before Derek could trust his voice to come out steady. He swallowed thickly a few times and tried not to feel like too much of a moron, standing in the middle of an empty alleyway fighting tears. Finally, "You know I do, Emily."

They were just close enough to one another that he could see her rolling her eyes. She seemed to come to a decision and started walking, somewhat grudgingly, back toward him. She was still three feet away when she stopped, facing him squarely. "You really piss me off sometimes, you know that?"

There was really only one response to that. "I'm sorry."

He _was_ sorry. For acting like a jerk, for getting her into an impossible situation and not being able to get her out of it, and for not being able to promise her they would all make it home in one piece. And no matter how much he tried to reason with himself, there was no way he was ever going to fully believe that that didn't make him somehow unworthy of the people he loved. And especially—he cringed inwardly—of those who loved _him_. But he still wasn't ready to think about that yet.

"I know you are," she sighed. Another long silence followed, during which they studied one another but neither seemed to know what to say. Emily broke it by looking abruptly away, as if suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings. "Are you—do you still need that walk?"

Derek considered, then shook his head. "I'll come back with you."

She nodded without smiling and gestured with her head in the direction of his mother's house. With that invitation, she turned again away from him and began walking. Derek hesitated only briefly before catching up to her. Silently, he took her hand, sliding his fingers between her cool, white ones, and absorbed the bittersweet punch he got seeing them intertwined. Emily, his statue. Priceless. Breakable.

* * *

His mother was giving him _that _look.

Derek knew it well. It was a quick, straight-lipped flick of the eyes that somehow without fail caused an automatic, silent debate to take place within him—one that started with him denying to himself that any such look and any such debate were happening in the first place and inevitably ended with him buying his mother roses and asking her forgiveness for one thing or another. He wasn't quite sure if all mothers were automatically endowed with this capability or if it was just his, but it sure was effective at making him feel like a horrible son. What made it even worse was that this time, there wouldn't be any roses.

It was getting pretty hard to ignore, so Derek did what came naturally to him. He pulled his mother into a strong hug and bent to press an affectionate kiss to her cheek. Fran sighed against his shoulder.

"You're leaving, aren't you?"

Derek remained silent, and she huffed a little. "And I suppose you'll want to bring Emily with you. And—"

Fran halted. Her son did not know she was aware of Emily's current state, and she was willing to keep it that way for now, if it would help make the decision she knew he had to make any less difficult on him.

"And what, Ma?" He prompted gently.

Fran just shook her head and gave her son a final squeeze. "Nothing," she said. "I love her, is all."

Derek smiled. "I know you do," was all he said, but she could see the spark of joy and relief in his eyes. Not for the first time, she saw the spitting image of his father in him. Her boys… they just needed to hear it. She smiled back.

"I do," she repeated, as if to reassure him. "And I love you too. Very much."

"Love you too, Mama." Her grown son's voice caught a little, and Fran couldn't help herself.

"You don't have to go," she offered, knowing well before the words exited her mouth what the answer would be.

Derek seemed to have to gather his resolve. "Yeah, we do." His voice was impressively steady now. "They're family too."

A familiar swell of pride clutched at her. She would be seeing her boy leave her, as always, for dangers she probably couldn't even imagine if she tried (which, she didn't. At least, not very often.) As terrifying as that was no matter what form the danger took, Fran found it oddly comforting that, despite everything that had gone down since the day the storms came, Derek Morgan was still the boy she had raised: principled to the point of obsession, devoted to the point of recklessness. So she would send him off, as she always did, without the tears or entreaties that always seemed to avail themselves to her at times like these.

In fact, it was Emily whose lip trembled as they hugged goodbye a few nights later, and Fran could feel the faint quiver in the younger woman's back from the effort of containing her emotion. She seemed reluctant to end their embrace, but once she had given her a final squeeze and whispered a final promise, she turned away quickly to wait for Derek just outside the door. It was then that Fran realized with a start that not long ago she had greeted a son on that porch, and now, only two and a half weeks later, she was saying goodbye to a son _and _a daughter. She wasn't sure if that made her the luckiest woman on the planet or the most unlucky.

* * *

Malik wasn't at City Hall when they arrived.

He didn't come in the hour that followed as they hid in shadows cast by grey concrete and pale moonlight, and he didn't come in the hour after that either.

Though she had been trying to hide it, Emily had been wearing out easily recently, and Derek had to shake her out of one of her frequent naps when he finally decided that if they wanted to be out of the city by dawn, they would have to go in alone. He didn't have to explain; after one look at him as he rose and fished out the single flashlight from his pack, Emily simply nodded, took his proffered hand, and stood to join him.

It took them longer alone. The tiny beam of light in the pitch darkness surrounding them was disorienting, and though undercover work had honed Derek's skill in quick spatial mapping, they made several wrong turns and reached more than one dead end before finally emerging into the dank but blessedly familiar sub-basement that led to the sewers.

By the time they reached surface, the first rays of sunlight were just peeking over the horizon, skimming the peaks of the choppy lake and making them sparkle almost as far as was visible. Behind them, the tarry black wall blocked their view of the shadowed city that had been their refuge. They spared only a quick glance back to ensure they could advance unseen and then headed towards the glistening water.

When they reached the SUV, the sun was high above them. All the windows had been broken, and most of what they had left inside was gone, but the engine started with minimal fuss. Emily fell asleep in the passenger's seat almost immediately and didn't wake up until the vehicle misfired, shuddered, surged, and then stopped moving altogether. One more clunky turnover got them another half a mile or so before they stalled again, and they sat in silence for a few moments as Emily finally took in their surroundings.

It was dark again, and they seemed to be safely off the beaten path near the shoulder of a two-lane country road. What Derek would remember that she naturally wouldn't was that it had been getting harder and harder to avoid towns as they headed towards the more densely-populated east. They were somewhere southwest of Toledo, and Derek had been forced to detour heavily in order to keep them undetected.

With no other option, they stopped for the night to rest, hoping the morning would bring them some better luck.

It didn't. Derek figured they could find and hotwire an abandoned car in less time than it would take them to diagnose and fix the problem, and it's not like they had any belongings left to speak of, so with barely a glance backwards they grabbed their packs and left.

It was almost alarmingly surreal, the simplicity of it. Emily couldn't help but acknowledge the pang of loss that passed through her, as if she were severing her final connection with the life she had before all this. She experienced it only distantly, however, as if she were merely watching the emotion being felt by someone else. The sensation was a familiar one, albeit heightened now. She supposed it would be to anyone acquainted with a lifetime's worth of leaving things behind.

It took the better part of the day to find another vehicle, this time a well-worn Corolla. It was nowhere near as spacious or comfortable as the Suburban, but at least the gas mileage was better.

By that time, though, Emily was ready to collapse again, and Derek could only drive safely for another couple of hours before they were forced to pull over for another night.

At this point, they were making even worse time than they had in California, and it didn't help that each morning they awoke stiff and aching, huddled against one another in the cramped backseat of the car. Add to that Emily's surging hormones and Derek's not-so-well-hidden anxiety any time he had to let her out of his immediate sight ('Can I please take a goddamn piss without you popping an aneurysm' were her exact words,) and the following few days of travel turned out to be tense and exhausting for both of them.

The first time they encountered a patrolled checkpoint, not too far outside Philadelphia, they thought it was an anomaly. They doubled back and chose an alternate route.

The second time, they didn't have time to think much of anything; coming over the crest of the hill, they were too close by the time they recognized the bizarre silhouettes of the Beamers in front of them to turn around without attracting attention. They had just enough time to grab their modest packs, tumble out of the car, and run.

Unfortunately, the only place to go from their high point in the hilly countryside of western Pennsylvania was down. The steep embankment that had skirted their right hand side was not only treacherous taken at a run; it also made them vulnerable as targets. A blast inches from Derek's left foot turned a patch of rock into dust, and it was too close for comfort. Startled, he instinctually dove for Emily, sending them both into an uncontrolled tumble down the uneven slope.

Pain exploded in his left elbow as he landed, striking a sizeable rock. He could feel the skin over it tear and blood start to gush over his forearm, but he kept his body curled protectively around Emily's as they fell, new starbursts of agony shooting up his injured arm with every rotation until finally they reached the bottom and collided roughly with a tree trunk. He heard the groan from beneath him and saw the trickle of blood down her pale temple, but a blast splintered the trunk just above his head, and Derek didn't have time to dwell on it. He stood, practically dragging Emily along with him, pushed her in front, and continued running, zigzagging among the trees in an attempt to disorient their oversized and ungraceful pursuer. It was working, but the blasts were becoming more erratic and closer together, and he knew no matter what their advantage in agility, they would tire sooner than the Beamer would.

A few minutes later, an outcropping of rock beside a stream became his best option. The terrain rose steeply over it, shielding its other side from view. They would be out of sight, but two potential problems quickly presented themselves. One: because he couldn't see the other side, he had no idea how much space, if any, they would have to stand on. Two: It would take too long to scale over the rise in terrain; they would have to go around it. That left them about half a foot of space before the outcropping ended in a steep drop to the stony water below. As they approached, Derek herded Emily towards the sharp edge of solid ground. Just as they reached the steep wall of mossy rock that blocked them from going any further, Derek threw his arms around her and gripped her to his chest, nearly scooping her up in front of him as he refused to let his momentum slow. His course carried them both to the very edge of the outcropping, then, bracing his back against the same jut of rock and earth that threatened to topple them over the edge, used it as leverage to whirl them both over to the other side.

There was no plunge. No sickening drop in his belly as his feet met empty space. The high ground sloped gently downwards to one side from above their heads, and the outcropping stretched a good ways out from where they were sheltered before meeting the forest floor again where it flattened. They remained on solid ground.

Derek wasted no time in crowding Emily back against their temporary shelter, taking the short reprieve to check over her frantically. "Hey," he panted. "You okay?" He cupped her cheek, forcing her to look at him, and thumbed away some of the blood that still ran over it. "You okay?" He repeated.

Emily nodded, her eyes widening as they fell on his swollen elbow which he held, bleeding, at a stiff angle in front of him. She opened her mouth to say something, but the thump of metal against rock signaled that the Beamer had reached the other side of their alcove. Derek pressed Emily even further against the rock behind them, turned so he was facing outwards with his back pressed against her, and used his good right arm to draw his Glock. The instant he reached with his left to steady it, though, his elbow locked in place and the pain nearly brought tears to his eyes. He buckled, regrouping. The clamoring was nearly directly above them now as the Beamer scaled the ridge. He could feel Emily's teeth skim the back of his shoulder as she buried her mouth in his t-shirt to muffle her ragged breathing. Derek steeled himself. They would only have a fraction of a second, and his aim had to be perfect. He wasn't going to get that firing one-handed and exhausted. The front half of the Beamer came into view above them, pausing, but it didn't look down. Then it advanced forward just past them, giving them its back. Derek gritted his teeth and moved to force his left arm through the pain to lift and steady his right. Suddenly, a cool, strong hand gripped his right wrist. Emily's hand moved gracefully up the back of his, steadying it and replacing his finger on the trigger with hers. It was awkward, but it was stable, and it meant Derek could use the entire strength of his right arm to aim. He raised the gun and found the kill shot. The Beamer turned. Emily fired.

The Beamer tipped backwards first. Then, hitting a tree, it wobbled and spun, tipping slowly over the edge of the precipice. Nine feet of metal and flesh passed within a foot of them as it fell, hitting the outcropping top-first and then toppling into the water. Derek heard himself let out some sort of cross between a whoop and a cry of pain. Emily's hand was still grasping the back of his, both their breaths coming loud and ragged in the sudden stillness. Derek dropped the gun, and her grip loosened. He turned, pushed her back against the stone, and kissed her with every ounce of the life that had just been spared them. Emily returned in kind, and it was only when they both needed air that Derek pulled back, kissing her eyes, the angle of her jaw, her hair before leaning his forehead against hers and waiting while their panting breaths evened out.

"Emily," he whispered once they had both relaxed marginally.

"Hm."

Derek's right hand came around to rest on her hip, his thumb reaching to caress her lower abdomen. "Damn it," he breathed, and he placed another peck on her lips. "I think we're going to have to walk for a while."

And walk they did. The farther east they got, the more concentrated the checkpoints became until they could no longer even depend on country roads for more than a couple of hours at a time. The time and energy they spent searching for and hotwiring vehicles for very little payoff became prohibitive, and eventually they stopped trying altogether.

Days turned to weeks. At night they would stop at abandoned houses, barns, even cars if that was their only option (Derek figured they may as well still be good for something,) but during the day they travelled as far away from once-civilization as possible. It was getting hot, it was difficult to navigate when they were doing everything they could to avoid anywhere that might be recognizable on a map, and their inconsistent access to water and calories wasn't helping Emily's now-frequent dizzy spells.

Derek's jaw tensed as he studied her. She was thin. They both were, but damn it, she was supposed to be _gaining _weight. He had managed a few admittedly risky runs while she slept during which he had snagged some prenatal vitamins, but he was pretty sure they were meant to be taken in conjunction with a diet other than packaged snack food and the occasional canned soup. No matter how much he tried to rationalize it, Derek couldn't help but hate himself for the fact that that was all he was able to give her.

Emily's voice broke his train of thought.

"You notice anything about those checkpoints they have?" She asked pensively.

Derek shrugged. "Notice a couple things. They're everywhere, and they're a pain in my ass."

"Yeah, but think back to every one we've seen so far. We always seem to come up from behind."

It was true. Though they had certainly managed to escape some close calls, the Beamers had generally been facing away from them on their approach.

"I don't think they're trying to keep people out, Derek," she pressed on. "I think they're trying to keep people in.

Derek turned the realization over in his head for a while. "Okay," he mused. "The east coast is densely populated and has a lot of large urban areas… so they form a perimeter around the entire region instead of around each individual city? If DC's not walled, we could have a way easier time getting in than we did in Chicago."

Emily gave him a look. "Easy, yeah, this is a cinch," she muttered.

Derek's chest tightened painfully. "No, Emily… I didn't mean—"

But she was already rolling her eyes at him. "Relax, it was a joke. Jeez, Morgan, you used to be able to handle my sarcasm." She tossed him a lopsided and affectionate grin, one that actually met her eyes, and for a moment she looked for all the world like a blithe co-ed on a camping trip.

He dropped his head, returned her grin sheepishly, and reached out to grab her hand. "It's been hard on you," he began softly, rubbing circles with his thumb on her palm.

Emily seemed slightly confused by the statement. She thought for a moment and then shrugged. "It just is what it is. Hard on everyone who's left."

But Derek was shaking his head. "You especially, though," he insisted.

She turned to study his face, one corner of her mouth turned lazily upwards, and Derek was almost positive that she saw the apology there, but she wasn't taking it. Finally, she smirked and turned away again. "Well," she began with exaggerated flippancy. "I'm happy to let you go on thinking that if it gets me a massage at the end of today."

He used his grip on her hand to pull her closer and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "You got it," he promised.

They walked for over two months.

As far as they could tell, they had headed south through the National Forest into Virginia and then doubled back up through Shendandoah. Once they caught sight of Highway 66 in the distance, they simply kept it to their left.

The farther they walked, the more winding and disorienting their route became as the urban sprawl became denser and denser, until one day they emerged from the comforting peace of a patch of forest to realize they were a mere 50 feet from the highway. Derek's heart leapt to his throat, and he pulled Emily back with him while checking all around them for patrols. Emily hadn't been speaking much lately; she seemed to be using all her energy simply to remain upright. She recoiled silently, expressionless. Derek was just about to retreat and change direction yet again when something made him stop: the angle of the sun…some flash of familiarity from another life. They hadn't accidentally run into I-66 again.

"Em," he whispered, his steadying grip finding her elbow. "That's the Beltway."

Emily's knees buckled.

* * *

They had been right: DC wasn't walled, only fortified and heavily patrolled. Minor routes out of the city were crudely blocked off, while major ones were guarded at checkpoints. It made coming into the city on foot a long, mentally exhausting process, but not impossible. Finally, they were playing on their home turf.

They tried Rossi's first. It was certainly large enough, and central, but they found it empty. They stayed to sleep late into the morning anyway, and it wasn't until a close wake-up call with a patrolling Beamer had them making a hasty midday retreat that they realized their mistake: they had profiled the place, and the place had changed. What they needed to do was profile their team.

First, they were a family—the only family most of them had locally. Which meant they'd stick together. Second, what brought them together was work. They had shared goals, backgrounds, and experiences that allowed them to work as a cohesive unit towards a common end. Third, they had all been trained in stealth and strategy. They would choose somewhere familiar—somewhere where they would have the home field advantage. Somewhere where every bit of their heavy training could be put to significant use. And there it was: their training. It was what united them and gave them an unusual advantage.

Hogan's Alley.

Derek looked at his partner and didn't have to ask if she were thinking the same thing. It had been a while since he had seen that triumphant gleam in her eyes, but he still knew what it meant.

And just like that, they were going back to Quantico. It so laughably perfect it could almost have been a joke.

It was already early afternoon when they set out, but it was as if a permanent cloud cover had settled over the nation's capital, making everything seem bleak and a little unfamiliar. Here and there, twisted pillars of inky black, rock solid material, frighteningly reminiscent of the despised Walls, would rise uncompromisingly from the ground creating demented, phantom-like monuments amidst a city already glutted with them.

Sixteen hours later, they arrived at Hogan's Alley in the still, black pre-dawn. The street was deserted, and Derek and Emily were heartened. It was an ingenious location, really. Unassuming, almost exaggeratedly commonplace… significant to no one but the initiated, especially compared to the infinitely more imposing Headquarters buildings on the base.

They bypassed a couple of private houses—too small and too risky. The inn was another story. Large, with multiple rooms and multiple exits, it was the perfect shelter for a sizeable group if they were strategic about security.

Which, naturally, they would be. As they reached the front door, Derek moved his right hand from the small of Emily's back, found her hand, and squeezed. The ferocity with which she squeezed back, as if he were the only thing holding her upright, told him she was as dizzy with fatigue and anticipation as he was. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the door in front of them, and her hand went instinctively to her belly. Derek raised his other arm, still stiff from the probable fracture he had suffered months ago, and knocked.

The tense minutes of silence that followed were almost sickening. Finally, the door cracked open to allow only the barrel of a gun to slide through.

Then, the door was thrown open. Hotch stood before them, silent and disbelieving. He was joined a moment later by, oddly, Kevin. Derek thought he had never been so overjoyed to see the bespectacled man.

It was the sound of a commotion behind him that seemed to break Hotch's inertia. The team was stirring, likely having been alerted by Kevin to a possible intruder. Derek was pulled inside by his former boss's embrace, and all at once they were standing inside the inn's lobby, hand in hand, surrounded by family.

"JJ," he distantly heard Emily choke out. He had less than a second to react to Penelope's muffled sob before finding himself nearly tackled, and his eyes began to sting a little, and everything became a bit of a blur: Reid's radiant, boyish grin, one of Hotch's rare smiles, tears (yes, tears) glistening at the corners of Rossi's eyes… his Penelope—still sobbing, still clinging to his hand with one of hers—attempting to herd both Emily and JJ into a smothering one-armed embrace.

It was Penelope, of course, who noticed it first. There wasn't much yet _to_ notice—a change in posture, a slight exception to the body weight she had lost, or perhaps Emily's hand had unconsciously strayed, as it had been wont to do lately, towards her belly. Whatever it was, Penelope had never been one to spare the dramatics. Her eyes bulged, and she took a long, gasping breath before starting to stutter.

"Is that—are you—" And she gasped again because this time Emily's hand _did_ stray, and her eyes widened a little as if she had been caught, and their friends started noticing what they hadn't truly before, which was that the two of them had arrived hand in hand, and now that Derek had made his way back to Emily's side, he was reaching for her again.

This time, Penelope didn't bother to muffle her cry.

And from that moment, the weeks simply flew. They talked a lot about strategy, about Resistance, but realistically it was Derek and Kevin who ended up consistently involved in the local movement; there was a lot of work to do to ensure the continued safety of their new home, and sparing more than two of them for any significant period of time became unsustainable.

The rest of their energies were almost entirely focused on security, food, and "school" for Jack and Henry. Though the group had previously been sharing curriculum and teaching responsibilities, the addition of two new family members opened up room for reevaluation. Spencer was quickly voted down from the teaching position by parents and students alike. While he seemed genuinely surprised by the consensus at first, he took the ousting good-naturedly and agreed to retire to guest-lecturer status only. Penelope was equally voted down, though by parents only, a decision she simply refused to acknowledge altogether. The boys _would_ be schooled by their Fairy Godmother, she announced, sniffing. Even if it meant she had to continue her tutelage after hours.

Emily and Dave, on the other hand, were naturals, and teaching quickly became a full-time position. Derek couldn't help but adore watching his lover interact with her students. With a roof over her head, a semi-consistent food supply, and the return of that _smile_, Emily was glowing. It hadn't taken her long after they had settled in to gain back most of the weight she had lost, and she was growing, it seemed now, more quickly every day. The sight had something fierce and possessive and ecstatic constantly humming like a live wire in the back of his head. It suited her beautifully, he realized, now that she actually _looked _pregnant (though the few times he had tried to tell her that she had only scowled and wished an array of unpleasant and often anatomically impossible physical ailments on him.)

For her part, Emily threw herself into teaching with the same uncompromising dedication as she had in all her previous work endeavours; only now instead of dealing with sociopaths, killers, and terrorists, she got to spend every day with the very brightest parts of a still-bleak world. So she supposed it wasn't really such a big wonder that here at the end of the world, when simply surviving on their own terms took up such a large proportion of their energies each day, there was a part of her that was genuinely happy.

So happy, in fact, that weeks turned to months almost without her realizing it. Though her body seemed to be changing almost faster than she could keep up now, the otherwise unfamiliar monotony of the days lulled her into a strangely blithe complacency. Which was why her mind seemed to seize and then cloud over when, in the middle of class and a little too early, Emily felt the sudden rush of warmth spill down the inside of her legs…

Something inside of her bucked.

No.

Suddenly she wasn't in class anymore, and it wasn't Dave beside her but Derek, and he was trying to hold her to him, his eyes pleading.

"_No!_"

"Please, Emily."

She tried to push against him. "You can't make me watch this."

"Okay, but just please think. _Think_. Who was Grace's father?"

Emily couldn't breathe, and her vision was blurring. "How dare you," she spat.

"You _know_, Emily."

"I don't." she ground out, her voice hoarse with the thing in her throat that was choking her. She backed away, but Derek was relentless.

"You do!" He was close to tears himself, now, and Emily couldn't for the life of her think of what _he _had to cry about. "You do, Em. I know you do."

With a final push, Emily broke free.

_Six: I offer you the emptiness which you seek._

She cowered, still gasping, her back hitting the cold, grey, stone wall behind her. Her eyes darted around her in search of the familiar prisoner, but the cell was empty.

Empty except for her—alone and naked beneath the unevenly-buttoned men's shirt that covered her, and this time it was blood, not water, running down the inside of her legs and making her thighs sticky.

The ragged sob that had been choking her escaped.


	11. Chapter 11

So, here it is: the last instalment of the Mercy Seat. Thank you once again so much to all those who have encouraged me while writing this! A special thanks to those loyal guest reviewers whom I never got to thank personally but who so consistently lent their support and brightened my day with their kind words and insightful comments. I'm having mixed feelings about the end of this, particularly because it means I can start writing the other storyline that's been bugging me for the past few weeks-one that probably should not be written but, let's face it, most likely will be.

Also, yeah, I totally reference Blade Runner in this chapter. You knew it was coming.

* * *

_Bang._

Emily awoke in a rush of tears and panic, gulping down air as if she had been drowning and skittering her bottom clumsily away from the Subject as soon as her shaking limbs began to cooperate.

_Bang. BANG._

She started so violently she bit her tongue, and the taste of metal filled her mouth.

"_Shit_," she hissed. She had lost track of time, and Rossi coming in to start work. Panicking, Emily started towards the door, then backtracked. There was no way to explain opening the door looking like she was. If she took a second to compose herself… make it look like she was in the middle of working…

But why would Rossi be banging on his own office door anyhow?

"Emily? Come on, Honey, I know you're in there." It wasn't Rossi's voice. Emily's heart stuttered. Garcia. Of course she knew.

"Open up, Em." JJ's voice now. "You're not in trouble. They just want to talk to you." Who were _they_? Emily pictured them standing outside the door with a couple of the burly Enforcement officers they used to flirt with.

Yeah, she was in trouble. She was in big fucking trouble. Emily began backing away from the door, her thoughts a blur as snippets of memory flashed across her racing mind:

"_I don't think they're dreams, JJ._"

"_You don't ever have to thank us. It's what we're here for."_

_It's what we're here for… It's what we're here for… _

_One: There is no escape._

Emily's eyes darted back to Derek, still and vulnerable in his artificial slumber. Another pound at the door made her jump, and with every second that passed she became more and more certain: he couldn't come join her here. _Here _was the prison. She had to join him, and she had no idea how she was going to do that.

Emily dropped to her knees and shook him. "Derek," she hissed. "_Derek!_" She threw a panicked look over her shoulder as Hotchner's voice became audible through the steel door. She had gotten it all wrong, she realized, still begging him to open his eyes. The voice in Derek's cell wasn't counting up to something—it was counting down. And Derek was running out of time.

With Hotchner's arrival came the anticipated clicks of an access code being entered on the other side of the door. Emily took a breath, gripped the thick wires that attached Derek to the machinery in the corner of the room, took a moment to let their cool heaviness anchor her, and dropped into the bath of pearly fluid with him.

_Seven…_

Emily fought against the disorienting flashes that accosted her—images of blood and loss and confusion that were starting to seem more and more hauntingly familiar—and put all her focus on the huddled figure in the corner of the cell.

_Eight…_

"Derek!" She cried as she reached him and crouched down in front of him. His blank eyes stared past her. Emily reached out to take his face between her hands. "Derek," she choked. "I'm sorry. I—I do know. I know who Grace's father was." Tears filled her eyes as she continued. "I may not remember everything, but—" she hiccoughed. "But I remember I loved him. I loved him, Derek. Please, please look at me. I love you." A flash of recognition broke through the glassiness of his eyes, and Emily's breath hitched. "_Yes_," she breathed, smiling widely as the tears continued to run down her cheeks. "That's it. Keep looking at me, okay? Just keep looking at me."

_Nine…_

Emily reached deep, deep into herself to where she could still feel the strange, heavy wetness of the fluid surrounding them and the weight of the wires still clutched in her hand. She put all her focus into that hand and pulled.

Several things happened almost simultaneously.

The grey cell flashed white and then disappeared altogether, and Emily wasn't sure if it was her own pain that laced through her head or Derek's, but it left as quickly as it came. Once again, she was pressed against her lover in an interrogation room, surrounded by glistening white goop.

Derek's body beneath her tensed, almost convulsing, and he took a long, gasping breath. His eyes snapped open, dim with confusion at first, then focusing on her and lightening with relief and—Emily nearly fainted from gratitude—recognition.

"_Emily,_" he nearly sobbed, and his hands came around her waist and his body rose to press more closely into her and his lips found hers…

And Emily felt hands gripping her shoulders, and she was dragged roughly up and away from him, dripping, to land on her bottom on the cold tile. Still slightly disoriented, she lashed out blindly at her attacker, the slick that still covered her working to her advantage in squirming out of his grip. As her elbow connected solidly with flesh and bone, it was Hotchner's voice that grunted in response, but when she turned to face him, she couldn't quite make out his features.

It was a strange feeling of anonymity, but it made her bold. He grabbed for her again, but his hands slipped off her skin, and Emily landed another hit to his jaw. Beside her, an unfamiliar Enforcement agent (had they always been so featureless?) reached for Derek but found himself flipped and submerged in the viscous bath. As Derek held down the struggling body with one hand, the other fished for something beneath the fluid. A second agent lunged at him in order to throw him off his counterpart, and just as he had grabbed Derek from behind, something skittered across the floor to Emily. With a final blow to incapacitate her former superior, Emily reached for the weapon Derek had thrown her.

The weight of it was comfortable in her grip, and the curve of the trigger familiar beneath her finger. The kickback was fierce, even, but Emily was certain it wasn't a bullet she fired.

Nonetheless, it got the job done. The agent had seen her and unhanded Derek to reach for his own weapon, but nowhere near on time. Bullet or no, he dropped easily enough with a hole between his eyes.

Luckily, Derek had had his eyes on his attacker's weapon since the moment he had been able to turn and face him; otherwise, JJ would have gotten to it first. He snatched it as she dove for it, and JJ recoiled, her hands raised in front of her in surrender.

The sight of the familiar blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes had visibly shaken Derek; he blinked a few times as if trying to clear his vision and shook his head. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, but he kept his weapon trained on her. Emily, behind him now, had turned to focus her attention elsewhere: on the workstation in the back corner of the room.

"_Garcia._"

Emily shook her head as the woman she had loved like a sister backed towards the computer that would alert the entire Network of two renegades at large. "Don't do it, Penelope."

"You know I have to, Kitten." Every once in a while, a shadow would fall across her face, and the features Emily was sure she knew as well as her own would melt to an indistinct grey. It made Emily want to vomit.

"_Please_," she choked, desperate. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I'm sorry, Emily. It's what I'm here for."

Penelope retreated the final step to the workstation. As she reached for the screen there, another shadow obscured her features. Emily held her breath and pulled the trigger. Letting out something in between a cry and a gasp, she turned away before she could see her friend fall.

Derek, looking shaken, still had JJ at gunpoint. Emily's hand grazed his elbow as she led the way hurriedly to the exit, and he backed up to follow, keeping JJ in his sights. Her lovely blue eyes followed him almost serenely, but Derek was becoming less and less unnerved by them each second. Because although they looked for all the world like his cherished friend's, JJ's eyes would have had something behind them that was distinctly _JJ_, and these… these were empty.

Still, he hesitated at the door as Emily pulled it open for them. He needn't have. Emily squeezed her eyes shut, taking a single deep breath in, and by the time she opened them it was anger rather than desperation that allowed her to take the final shot.

Derek could have laughed as they tumbled out of the room he had awoken in and into a very familiar bullpen. Emily must have noticed his expression because she gave him a funny look as she led him down a back staircase.

"DC Headquarters," Derek explained as if it were obvious. "Might not be Quantico, but Emily, we _know _this place."

And it was a good thing, too, because everything from then on was a blur to her: the guard's barely-spoken challenge to her before he crumpled, leaving Derek standing in his place; the surreal feeling of waking from a very long dream as they burst through the front doors into a dead city; the realization as the freezing drops stung her face and chilled her body to the bone that it was raining still and not yet light out even though it felt as if she had spent an eternity inside that building. Derek must have noticed her falter as he finished hastily fastening the fallen guard's pants around his waist because the next thing she knew her hand was gripped firmly in his, and he was pulling her confidently through the sodden, darkened streets.

They ran until the adrenaline started wearing off and Derek's already weakened limbs nearly gave out. Under the dubious shelter of a leaky overpass, they caught their breath in silence, both sinking to the ground with their backs against the freezing concrete support beam. After he had managed to gather his energy, Derek turned to Emily and reached out to caress her cheek with his fingers, as if unconvinced she was truly beside him.

"You're shivering," he told her softly.

Emily barely reacted. "So are you," she observed, rightly.

"Are you okay?"

At this, she opened her mouth, then closed it, shook her head, and opened it again. "Penelope," she sighed. "JJ…" She tensed and balled her fists against the whimper in her voice. "All they were were lies and illusions. But somehow knowing that doesn't make it any easier."

"Emily, no," Derek soothed, reaching for her instinctually. "They might have been illusions, but their friendship wasn't. Those girls love you. They're waiting for you to come home."

Slowly, Emily dragged her eyes from where she had been staring straight ahead of her and faced him, her expression still shell-shocked. "Tell me," she whispered, nearly wincing at her own words. She took a shuddering breath, then continued more strongly. "I want to know what happened."

He nodded, refusing to take his eyes off her, as if she would run the moment he looked away. "You went into labour a few weeks early," he began slowly. "It wasn't anything too concerning, and Reid had already memorized all the books he was likely to get on the subject, so we were about as prepared as we were gonna be." Derek couldn't help but give her a small smile. "_You, _on the other hand, were having some difficulty adjusting to the idea."

* * *

_When Derek returned home to unmistakable shrieking, his heart nearly stopped for a full few seconds. _

_Hotch's low, calm voice floated around the corner, barely audible above the commotion coming from his room. "Garcia, maybe you should come out here and give Reid some room." _

"_No!" Derek had no difficulty hearing Emily bellow as she cut him off. "No, if Reid is spending the foreseeable future staring at my vagina, then I'm entitled to moral suppo—fuck!" _

_Derek ran for the room he shared with Emily to find Hotch shutting the door while whispering something to Rossi beside him. He threw it back open to find Emily looking terrified and pissed off, pressing her back into the headboard of their bed like a trapped animal. She was dressed in what appeared to be a men's work shirt—long enough to give her some privacy even with nothing else on—and Derek made a mental note to thank whomever it was who had donated it. JJ stood on her far side holding one hand, while Penelope tutted and fretted, using a wet cloth to wipe the sweat from Emily's forehead and looking about ready to jump out of her skin from anxiety and excitement. Reid was frozen at the foot of the bed, wearing medical gloves but looking as if he had no idea what to do with them, and appearing just as one might after receiving a verbal lashing from Emily Prentiss. _

_Emily's eyes softened and widened when she noticed him, and the pain he saw in them made his chest clench. "Derek," she whimpered, holding out the hand nearest to him. She panted a few times as he rushed to her and took it firmly in his. "This isn't supposed to happen," she moaned, her eyes pleading with him. _

_At this, Derek had to grin at her. "Oh no?" he said, wiping a sweaty clump of hair off her forehead. "What was it you were expecting, Princess?" _

_But Emily wasn't seeing the humour. She shook her head firmly. "Not now. Not like this." _

_He could see JJ give Emily a sympathetic smile and rub her forearm reassuringly, but Emily just cried out and swore again as another contraction hit her. She collapsed against him when the wave of agony began to subside, burying her face in the crook of her neck. "You sure took your sweet ass time getting here," she keened. "Why are you so late?" _

"_I'm sorry Baby," Derek soothed. "I didn't know. I'm here now. We're gonna meet this little guy together." He went to kiss the top of her head, but Emily groaned and pulled away, flopping back against the pillows piled against the headboard. "Screw you," she bit out. "You think I give a rat's ass about that right now? I nearly broke JJ's hand waiting for you, and she's not the one who deserves it." _

_He chuckled softly and stroked her hair. "Well, Sweetness, at the rate you're going now I think JJ's well on her way to getting her revenge, so she might forgive you." Emily opened her mouth to respond, but a contraction took her breath away. _

_Spencer, looking a little desperate, appeared to be weighing his options. He looked from Emily, barely coherent from pain, to Derek, who looked like he on the brink of both bursting into tears and running, shouting, around the building. "Morgan," he whispered, urgently. "I—I really need to—"_

"_NO." He was cut off by Emily. "No, Reid, you don't need to do anything," she pleaded. "Just make it stop." _

_Spencer shook his head, wide-eyed, but the amount of force he managed to put behind his voice was impressive. "I can't make it stop, Emily." _

_Surprisingly, it seemed to calm her a little bit. She took two more shaky breaths, closed her eyes, and gave a small nod. Derek turned away to focus on Emily as Reid lifted the thin sheet covering her and reached a gloved hand between her legs. He winced as whatever the younger man was doing caused her face to contort with pain and her eyes to tear. _

_A few seconds later, Reid withdrew his hand. "Okay," he said, his brows still knit in concentration. "The next contraction… I think you need to start pushing." _

_Derek blinked. "You think?" _

_But Emily was already speaking over him. She shook her head, and a few tears finally spilled down her cheeks. "No, I can't," she protested. "I'm not ready yet." _

"_Yes you are," Spencer argued softly, a sweet, almost naïve smile forming on his lips. "You're Emily. You're ready for anything." _

_Emily was still shaking her head in denial when the next contraction tore an agonized cry from her, but Spencer's voice cut through it, commanding now, telling her to push, push! _

_Emily pushed. _

_It took just over 40 minutes. _

_It was 40 minutes of tears and sweat and cries that cut through Derek as if the pain that caused them were his own, and it ended in a rush of blood and a different cry that he was sure was the most wonderful sound he would ever hear. _

"_It's, uh—it's a girl," Reid announced, breathless, as he and JJ cleared her mouth and nose and quickly cleaned her off with a sheet. _

"_A girl?" Emily echoed, dazed, as she struggled to sit up higher. Garcia, practically vibrating, squealed, kissed Emily sloppily on the cheek, squeezed the breath out of Derek for a second, and ran out of the room to tell the others. JJ grinned. Deftly undoing a few buttons on Emily's shirt, she deposited the tiny, squalling thing onto the exposed skin of her chest and covered both of them with the sheet for warmth. "It's about time we had another lady around here," she said and gave Emily a gentle hug before going to meet Penelope outside. _

"_Oh my God," Emily breathed, seeming to come slightly out of her daze when she felt her baby's skin against hers. "She's amazing." _

_Derek let out a breathless laugh. "She's perfect," he declared, and pressed a kiss to the side of Emily's neck. "You did it." _

_Emily finally tore her eyes from the tiny bundle on her breast as her baby's wails settled into little whimpers. She met Derek's eyes, and the glaze of remembered panic melted away completely from her expression. She broke out into an astonished, elated grin. "I did, didn't I?" she asked, her voice still hoarse. She looked down at her baby again. "What if I drop her? I'm tired…" _

_Derek laughed. "You're not going to drop her," he scoffed, and kissed her again. After a few minutes of stroking the tiny head, he looked around, realizing for the first time that they were alone in the room. "You wanna let everyone meet her before you fall asleep? Penelope's probably frothing at the mouth by now." _

_Emily nodded absently, the dreamy look in her eyes making him suspect she would agree to just about anything at that point as long as she could keep holding the tiny body to her. The smile didn't leave her face as their family filed in, cooing their greetings to their newest member and issuing heartfelt congratulations to Derek and Emily. "So, what's her name?" Rossi asked, and Emily looked taken aback for a second. _

"_I dunno," she admitted. "She doesn't have one yet." _

_Rossi frowned. "Little girl like this needs a name," he admonished. "The next generation needs to know what to call their fearless leader." _

_Emily laughed. "Well, it won't be Fearless Leader, but we'll get on it," she assured him. _

_It wasn't an issue for long, though, since Garcia had already come up with several pet names of varying levels of ridiculousness, and for the moment everyone seemed content to call her Little Bear for the panda hat with little black ears that Garcia had knit in anticipation of her arrival. Upon seeing it a few weeks earlier, Emily had simply raised her eyebrows (reluctant to admit that it actually was kind of cute,) to which Penelope had responded unrepentantly that "aside from the little critter you're about to pop out, baby pandas are the most adorable little bundles of black-and-white happiness in the world." _

_Somewhat surprisingly, it was also Garcia who first noticed Emily's gaze becoming more and more distant with exhaustion and ushered everyone out of the room, though she herself dallied and fretted for a while before closing the door behind her._

_Once they were alone again, Derek turned back to Emily and couldn't help but beam at her, the sight of his partner and his daughter cuddled together still taking his breath away. Emily returned the expression tiredly. _

"_So?" He asked her. "What do you think?" _

"'_Bout what?" _

"_What are we gonna call her? She can't be Little Bear forever." _

"_Mmm," Emily murmured. "I don't really mind… Frances? Rebecca?" She began to nod off but caught herself. _

_Derek nuzzled her and grinned. "You really didn't like Shakira?" _

_She smiled distractedly. "Definitely not Shakira… Derek?" _

"_Yeah, Babe." _

"_Maybe you should take her for a while… I—I'm afraid I'm going to drop her." _

"_Emily, I promise you won't drop her." But he took the now sleeping baby from her and cradled her to his chest, watching as if enchanted as her tiny nose crinkled at the shift in position. _

_Emily looked as if she was having as much difficulty tearing her eyes from her as he was, and she reached over to touch her baby, missing her warmth already even while battling the exhaustion that was threatening to overwhelm her. _

_When her hand finally fell away beside her and her head nodded again, Derek began to relax knowing how desperately she needed to sleep. She started one last time, though, and murmured softly after a sharp intake of breath, "Grace… Grace." _

_Surprised, Derek was about to respond, but her eyes had slid closed again, and now that he thought about it, had there been something that bothered him just a little in how limp she had become, and had she really been quite that pale before? _

_Careful not to jostle the baby, he reached his free hand to squeeze her cool, limp one. "Em?" He whispered, shaking it. "Hey…" She remained alarmingly still aside from the quick, shallow puffs of breath that he allowed to reassure him marginally. _

"_Emily?" His hand moved to her cheek, cool and damp and—he was sure of it now—impossibly pale. "Emily. Baby, wake up." His heart was so close to his throat he was sure it would choke him, and Grace began to fuss now against his chest. Derek didn't pause to reflect on exactly when in the last few seconds the name had solidified in his mind as his daughter's. _

"_Emily." He shook her, then shook her again, harder. "Come on, Beautiful, wake up for me," he pleaded, but it was then that he noticed the dark, wet stain that flowered out from beneath her and was quickly making its way towards the edge of the comforter on which she lay, and he knew that his pleas would go unanswered. "Reid," he tried to call out, but his voice came out thin and strangled. "Reid!" _

_The anguish in his voice must have been clearly audible because a slightly breathless Reid threw the door open a moment later with JJ close behind, her brow knitted with worry. Derek stood, frozen, one arm supporting the minute but precious weight of his now wailing daughter, the other reaching for his lover, and powerless to help either one. "JJ," he managed to choke, not daring to move his eyes from Emily's still form. Wordlessly, JJ took Grace into her arms and began to soothe her. With both arms now free, Derek took Emily's hand and clasped it to his chest, using his opposite hand to caress her clammy cheek and forehead. "Reid?" He gritted his teeth and forced himself to look over at the younger man. Derek couldn't tell exactly what he was doing beneath the sheet that covered her, but there was no mistaking the fear and helplessness in his eyes. Spencer simply gave him a bewildered shrug and a tiny shake of the head, as if begging him not to ask, then turned his attention back to Emily. _

_Derek could feel his face crumble. "Emily," he practically whimpered, clutching her to him. "No, Emily." It was only after a few gasping sobs and gulps for air that he trusted his voice again. "Can you fix her?" He asked waveringly. _

"_I don't—It could be—"_

"_Reid, can you fix her?" _

"_I don't know! Maybe, Derek… I—I'm trying."_

_Derek closed his eyes, filled his lungs, and, as he let the air blow shakily past his lips, willed the panic to escape with it. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he rested her forehead in the crook of his neck, gathered her up, and began to stand. It wasn't until a collective cry of protest went up around him that he realized how many people were hovering around the room. _

"_Morgan," Rossi growled warningly. "What the hell are you doing?" _

"_I'm taking her to a hospital." Rossi could posture all he wanted to._

"_But…that may as well be suicide," JJ's voice cut in. "We'll never see either of you again!" _

"_There are clinics," he insisted. "Sympathetic to the Resistance. We took Richter to one." _

"_That was over a week ago," Kevin spoke up, almost apologetically, from the doorway where he squeezed a crying Penelope more closely into his side. "It's probably Bureau territory by now." _

_Derek merely set his jaw and refused to look at any of them. He started toward the door. _

_Hotch stepped in front of him. "Derek," he tried to reason with him, calmly but firmly. "Why don't you let Reid try to help her?" _

_Finally, he broke. "No, fuck that, Hotch," he spat. "You have any idea the shit she went through to get here? I'm not wasting any more fucking time on maybe." _

_There was a scuffle behind him as Derek exited the room and stalked down the hallway, and he couldn't have cared less who he was pissing off if it meant doing something, anything, to help Emily. Finally, Hotch's voice called after him again. _

_"Morgan." Derek ignored it. "Morgan!" And his footsteps quickened to overtake him until again, Hotch forced himself in front of him. "Okay," he conceded, having to walk backwards in order to accommodate Derek's uncompromising advance. "We go see if we can get her help. But, Derek, I'm coming with you."_

* * *

There was a long moment during which the only sound was the rain splashing onto the overpass above and the low ground surrounding them. Derek took a deep, shaky breath before continuing.

"We found you a clinic easily enough," he explained. "Kevin… Kevin was right. They wouldn't let me go back with you, and I was so beside myself at that point that I didn't even fight it. But when I asked for an update…" Derek squeezed his eyes shut against the painful memory. "You weren't just gone. It was like you had never existed." He shook his head, his eyes haunted. "After that… I don't remember much. Just that a couple weeks later I decided if I wanted you back, I was going to have to go in after you."

At this, Emily's body started. "A couple weeks?"

Derek shrugged. "A little less, maybe," he replied, distracted, until he noticed her expression. "Wh—how long was it for you?"

Her mouth opened, but it seemed to take her a few seconds to figure out what the right answer was. "Years," she said, finally. "I don't know. All those moments… lost in time." Her breath hitched and she sniffed a little, but with the rainwater still dripping down her face it was impossible to tell if she was crying. He studied her until she dragged her eyes from the blackness in front of them. Now that she was facing him, he could see the trepidation in them.

"Grace," she whispered, and Derek's heart simultaneously broke and warmed over. He beamed at her even while tears formed in his eyes and started to spill over his cheeks.

"She's beautiful, Emily. And she needs her Mommy."

And then Emily did start to cry.

* * *

They had moved. Emily balked momentarily at the non-descript basement door nestled in an industrial area of town to which Derek had led her. "I compromised you," she murmured, stricken.

Derek only squeezed her hand more tightly and brought her fingers to his lips. "We just had to take precautions," he assured her, tapping out the familiar code pattern of four knocks onto the heavy, steel door. It opened almost immediately.

"Derek, Man," Will uttered, clapping him on the back while Emily flew past him and into Reid's arms. "JJ swore up and down you'd bring her back, but I was gettin' damn worried. Emily," he breathed in relief and embraced her as she reluctantly pulled away from Reid. "So glad you're home."

And then the tears began again because Emily turned to find her nose buried in soft, blonde hair, and JJ and Penelope were before her, alive, and _real_, and as she clutched them to her it was like getting to say 'I'm sorry' and 'I missed you' and 'I love you' all at the same time. She never got as far as opening her mouth, though, because Rossi emerged from a back room carrying a tiny bundle in his arms, and words quickly became meaningless.

Silently, Rossi deposited the fussing baby into her arms, and Grace almost immediately began rooting at her breast. Emily's eyes blurred even more, and she hiccoughed on a sob. Sniffing, she allowed Rossi to kiss the crown of her head and place his arms gently around her, transfixed all the while by the tiny, squirming thing in her arms.

Hours later, Derek returned from preparing for bed in the bathroom to find Emily in nearly the same position, sitting on the corner of the mattress they would now share with her back to the wall, staring in wonder at her daughter as she slept. Chuckling, he slid in to sit beside her, placing a tender kiss on her temple as his only greeting. They enjoyed the silence together for a few moments, simply acknowledging the awe they were both feeling at actually being there, all three of them, together.

"She's so tiny," Emily breathed after a while. "When you said she was—" she paused, swallowing—"I thought I had missed my chance. It didn't matter, as long as she was alive, but I just… I thought I'd missed this."

Derek only shook his head. "I think it's right around your due date now, actually." Emily responded with a dreamy smile without taking her eyes off Grace, and Derek laughed softly again.

"You're going to have to put her to bed eventually, you know," he said, nudging her gently with his shoulder.

Emily laughed. "I can't let her go," she admitted. She offered him a self-deprecating smile, but it wasn't hard to notice the hint of something vulnerable and scared behind it. "It just doesn't seem real… I keep thinking I'm going to eventually have to give her back."

Derek absorbed this for a moment before turning to her more fully. "You don't have to let her go, Emily. And you never have to give her back. She's yours."

"Ours," Emily corrected him softly, smiling as Grace let out a yawn and stroking a tiny fist with her thumb.

Derek was unprepared for the surge of emotion it sent through him. He swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked back the tears that had formed too quickly for him to stop it. "Em," he whispered, nearly breathless with a sudden sense of urgency. Silently, he pleaded with her to understand. "You knew, right?"

Emily's thumb stilled over Grace's fist, and she paused for a second. "I did," she said, and then turned finally to face him. "I do."

And Derek let the tears fall. "I love you," he choked, taking her face between his hands and forcing her to look into his eyes. "I _love _you. Always, Emily. I love you."


End file.
